


Calculated Risk

by Greenninjagal, thedragonsarecats



Category: Assassination Classroom, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Both literally and figuratively, F/M, Isogai deserves the world, Itona is a little shit, Karma's a bitch, M/M, Maehara can't be a villain even if he tried, Portals, and we love him anyway, assumed death, get these kids some therapy, superpowers!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-01-06 11:03:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18387140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greenninjagal/pseuds/Greenninjagal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedragonsarecats/pseuds/thedragonsarecats
Summary: “How many?” She asked.At the other end of the call the man she had come to love was silent. She gritted her teeth together, trying to hold back the urge to scream.“Eight,” he said.***Aka: One year after killing their teacher, eight students from the former End class find themselves brushing off their old assassination skills to survive in a world filled with people just as powerful and strange as their old teacher as they desperately try to find their way home(beta-ed by Jungle321Jungle)





	1. Have You Heard the News that You're Dead?

Chiba and Haymai’s dates have never gone particularly _well,_ so-to-speak, even after more than a year of dating and even longer of the two just being friends.  

There was that time that they had been kicked out of the summer festival for completely owning all the shooting games. And then the time that when Koro-sensei been non-discreetly following them for hours and taking billions of pictures (not that Hayami could complain about it, when she saw them in her personal year book that she opened whenever she was missing the close camaraderie of the 3-E class). More recently there had been the time they had gone through a haunted house, and been extremely disappointed without any good jump scares since they could see each person hiding poorly in the shadows. Or the time when they both had gone to see the new action movie Karma and Nagisa were raving about, and Chiba had spent it grumbling under his breath about how no _real_ sniper would have been able to make that shot. And—well, they had a bit of a track record.

But after all that, neither of them had expected this.

This, of course, being the guns pointed in their faces.

Hayami supposed it was natural for both of them to freeze at the sight—the familiar sight of a weapon. It had after all been so long (and not long enough) since they had been thrown into a world of danger. Any normal person would have frozen on the spot at the sight of a gun out in the open, much less pointed directly at them.

(Perhaps, Hayami should have taken that as a good sign. They were finally, _finally,_ recovering from having to kill their teacher.)

“Rinka!” Chiba yelled and for a moment Hayami was truly started by the sound of her first name slipping from his mouth. It was a moment too long, a moment too much. Hayami knew the second it had happened—when she felt his fingers break from their hand hold and then those same careful hands that could take out a target from 400 yards shoved her out of the way. 

The ground came fast and hard and it left her with burning palms and a tear in her leggings. Hayami didn’t even notice. The entire street was filled with a horrible, terrible teal light. At the center of it, Ryunosuke Chiba stood, caught in a partial block, because only he would think that he could stop a bullet with his forearms. But it wasn’t a bullet, or a taser, or something they could fight. It was a brilliant light, that sliced through the physical defenses he had thrown up and enveloped him completely.

And then Chiba screamed.

From the ground, several feet away, Hayami could feel the sudden burst of sweltering heat, the scorching waves of energy. She could see him—Chiba-—his head thrown back in a scream, his long black bangs sweeping out of his face and his entire form compulsing with an unfathomable pain. 

And a second later was over. The light broke and the street was plunged into an unearthly darkness. Chiba’s voice, his scream, was gone just as quickly.

Hayami lunged for the spot he had been. Except that there was nothing there. Chiba, his favorite beanie, his high school jacket, everything—it was gone. _He_ was gone and Hayami was dragging her fingers into the asphalt.

“Chiba,” She gasped.

Because Chiba had just been there, had _always_ been there. He was _Chiba_ , the quiet kid, the boy who never made excuses, never tried to tell her she was living her life wrong, never tried to fill the silence between them with nervous chatter. He had understood her, had saw her through those dark bangs better than anyone else ever had. 

He had known when she needed space, when she needed an anchor, when she needed someone just to be near her. He had fit by her side like a puzzle piece clicking into place.

She looked up at the assailants who had dared attack them on their date night. Blood pounded in her ears, in her veins, in her throat as she tried to come up with the words she wanted to say. But there was nothing, no words, that could have conveyed the _bloodlust_ that had suddenly crashed over her.  

Hayami was a high schooler now, in her second top picked school. Her classmates thought she was distant, a little standoffish, a little not-right. She could have lived her entire life like a normal citizen, but underneath she would always be the second sniper from class 3-E.

Her foot swung out from under her body in a move that Okano had taught her once upon a time, and caught the ankles of one of their attackers. She launched back to her feet, covering the distance between her and the other attacker in a second. She wedged her shoulder under his shooting arm and his next shot flew straight into the air. An elbow to his chest sent both of them tumbling backwards.

Then Hayami reached for a knife that wasn’t there.

Because they had stopped caring around knives on themselves a year ago, because they didn’t have a reason for knives anymore, because she had been on a _date_ and had naively thought that maybe she didn’t need to be anyone’s protector-assassin-fighter.

Hayami reached for a knife that wasn’t there and in the split second confusion that followed, the attacker she had knocked to the ground grabbed her by the back of her shirt and thrown her back to the ground. Pain rippled across her forearms, the rough flooring tearing through her skin like it was made of butter.

She wasn’t quick enough to recover.

He kicked her stomach. She slammed into the side of the building. Something metallic pooled in her mouth. She folded over on herself as if she could stop another attack.

It didn’t come for another breath.

She looked up just in time to see the gun, the same gun that had take Chiba away from her, leveled at her crumpled form. The entire street was filled with teal light. Sweltering, scorching, burning teal light.

Hayami threw her head back and _screamed_.

The last thing she saw was the crescent moon and chunks of rocks in the sky that barely looked any different from the night that Koro-Sensei had died.

***

Irina Jelavić was not prone to panic.

She was _not_ prone to panic.

She wasn’t panicking.

She paced the white halls of the lab, impatiently, her nails carving crescents into her arms. Her golden hair fluttered behind her, loose, too loose for a real doctor. But she hadn’t come there to go unnoticed, she had gone in to get rid of the opposition, and clear the way for Karasuma’s forces to enter and shut the place down.

She had gone in, intending to be quick and fast and lethal. Just like the assassin she was known to be, except now she was legal. She was a good person—a _better_ person. Or at least learning to be, thanks to that terrible, awful year of trying to teach those completely terrible, awful junior year kids English and kill their other teacher.

Those same terrible, awful junior year students that had graduated to becoming high schoolers, and proving to everyone that they were capable of more than anyone had ever dreamed. 

Her shoes seemed too loud in the silent hall. Her phone was clutched in her right hand, too tight, and she kept checking it for the message although she hadn’t felt it vibrate at all.

She wasn’t panicking. 

She hadn’t been too slow. She couldn’t have been.

Those were _her_ students. She couldn’t have failed them like this. She couldn’t have watched them all grow up, all become these independent, brilliant kids, and then not have a chance to see them change the world. 

Her phone buzzed. She answered the phone call on before the end of the first ring.

“Karasuma,” She said, her throat strangled by desperation.

He’d be expecting a report: statics and numbers and verbal confirmation that the lab was shut down and there wasn’t a dangerous tentacle monster rampaging around. He would want her to tell him that she had accomplished her mission to the utmost perfection.

“How many?” She asked. 

At the other end of the call the man she had come to love was silent. She gritted her teeth together, trying to hold back the urge to scream. 

“Eight,” he said.

“Eight,” She echoed, just barely more than a whisper. She squeezed her eyes closed, swallowing the lump in her throat that threatened to choke her to death. Her hands shook. “Damn him.”

“Is he—?”

“Dead,” Irina said bitterly. “He panicked and tried to run.”

She glared at the tiled floor, the pristine cleaness of the operation. Her gun was back in its holster on her thigh, but it felt like a useless weight when it hadn’t even been the weapon that had killed the man. 

“Are you sure?” Irina whispered, “They might have just—” 

“I’m sure,” He said, “Ritsu and I triple checked phone locations, GPS, media recordings and even tapped into police scanners in all of their cities.” There was a heavy, weighed breath, “We were too late. He hit eight of them.”

Irina shook in a way she had never shook before. Worse than when she had watched the militant kill her parents and then returned the favor. Worse than when her mentors Lovro and Olga had sent her out on her first solo hit. Worse than when she had come face to face with the unkillable Koro-sensei after her first failed attempt at killing him.

Her chest heaved, carving out a void in her heart. The question was on the tip of her tongue, on the edge of her teeth, quivering in the air between her lips and the phone. She could ask and find out because Karasuma wouldn’t lie. Not about this. He’d tell her if she asked.

“Who?” She asked, and traitorously wished she hadn’t, because she knew better than to wish for favorites in a class that hadn’t deserved any of this.

Halfway across the world, Tadaomi Karasuma stood with his head pressed against the floor-to-ceiling window, staring down at the fluctuating city lights, scarcely breathing. His desk was flipped over, his stacks of precariously piled papers tossed into the wind. A fist sized dent in the wall matched the throbbing ache of his knuckles. 

Karasuma, who had been charged with the task of training those kids to kill a monster, who had been trusted to keep them alive and safe, who had taken a calculated risk and been wrong, wished desperately he wasn’t the reason eight of them were now dead.


	2. Cannot Seem to Find My Way Home Tonight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Right,” Isogai said, straightening his spine and putting as much steel into his gaze as he could, and unfurling Yumma Isogai, Class President of 3-E, Assassin, from his shell, “What do you want.” 
> 
> (It might have been more effective if his entire world hadn’t swam again halfway through the sentence and Isogai had to force his nausea down.)
> 
> “What do we want?” The bear-mouse-thing repeated. None of the enemy batted an eye at its appearance, “Young man, you are the ones who appeared in my office with a dead body!”

Yumma Isogai only vaguely remembered what he had been doing before he came in contact  with the teal light. He remembered having spent the entire evening in Kataoka’s living room, with their matching social studies textbooks and not-matching notes spread between the two of them as they studied, like they had been doing together every other day ever since they had realized they shared the same class once again. He remembered glancing up at the clock, yawning, and trying to convince himself that they could still review the next chapter before the exhaustion caught up with him.

 

“How many hours have you worked this week?” Megu Kataoka had asked suddenly, her tone almost accusatory. For a second it felt a lot like they were class representatives again, back to discussing the strengths and weaknesses of their peers.

 

Isogai had weakly chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Too many? But I have a good reason!” He scrambled to pull out his phone and show his calendar to her. “Maehara and I made plans to catch up this weekend! I took on extra shifts to make up for the time I was taking off!”

 

“Of course you are,” She had huffed, muttering something under her breath that Isogai hadn’t quite caught as she gathered her notes into a pile.

 

“You need to get home, and get some sleep.” She had told him pointedly. “Maehara’s not gonna enjoy the weekend if he has to spend it carrying you back to your house because you collapsed from exhaustion.”

 

Isogai had wanted to argue with her, wanted to cover the last chapter, wanted to prove that he was alright to keep going. But he had yawned again, and it had effectively demolished his argument. With a sheepish look he had gathered his papers and closed his textbook.

 

“Sorry, Kataoka,” He said, “I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”

 

“ _Baka,_ ” Kataoka had batted the side of his head. Isogai thought he saw a dusting of a blush on her face but she stubbornly turned away. “Just...go have fun with Maehara.”

 

He remembered packing his bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He remembered thanking Kataoka and her parents for hosting him and allowing him to stay for dinner. He remembered Kataoka walking him to the door, looking like she wanted to say something, and then thinking better of it.

 

He remembered seeing her phone clenched in her hand, tightly, as he stepped out of house.

 

“Isogai—” she had started, quietly, and then, “You’re a good guy, you know that?”

 

He remembered looking at her, taking in the roll of her shoulders that seemed uncharacteristically uncertain. He had furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth to ask what had brought that on, when there was a sound behind him.

 

Isogai had whipped around, and bright teal light had filled his vision.

 

After that, there’s not much: Maybe Kataoka had screamed his name, maybe he had remembered to throw an arm up in a desperate attempt to shield himself, maybe the teal light had seared right through his body. Maybe the exhaustion had caught up to him in that second, or maybe it was the agony of every single one of his atoms exploding that caused him to combust.

 

Maybe he felt the ground slip out from under him, sucking him right through into emptiness. Maybe he was falling through space and time. Maybe each breath felt like his lungs were being ripped right out of his body turned inside out and shoved back in. Maybe he tumbled head over heels in the dead space for minutes, hours, _days_.

 

He doesn’t really remember. Everything was too bright.

 

And then Isogai slammed headfirst into a desk and everything went black.

 

The next thing he remembered was a massive, throbbing hurt in his head. He wasn’t a stranger to pain, not in small doses at least. Karasuma had made sure each and every one of them was able to take a hit and get back up, and what type of class leader would Isogai have been if he hadn’t been out there training just as hard as everyone else?

 

Regardless, he still felt like someone had taken Sugino’s baseball bat to his head, and then handed it over to Karma for good measure. He could _feel_ each thought as awareness slowly came back to him. His nerves pricked at that, reminding him of each limb and that _yes, they all were still there_.

 

Then he opened his eyes.

 

And he realized he was in the middle of a fight.

 

There was a lot of yelling—which Isogai was pretty sure shouldn’t have sounded like it was coming from underwater, especially when he could physically see the people yelling right next to him. And then somewhere between seeing Nagisa wrap his hips around some unknown man’s face and spin them both to the floor, and Itona barreling down a short old women with one hand stretched out holding a—fuck, a _taser_ , Isogai realized that he wasn’t dreaming, and those really were his friends, and they really were about to kill two strangers.

 

“S-stop!” Isogai shouted, stumbling off of the mattress he was lying on and to his feet, holding his arms out as if to mitigate damage. The world swam and almost immediately his knees buckled. He blindly grabbed for the cot he had been lying on to steady himself. “What the hell is going on?”

 

Itona froze with his taser inches away from making contact with the older woman. Even Nagisa who had slipped his victim into a triangle hold on the ground loosened his grip slightly to look up at him, bloodlust fading from his eyes and replaced with something more akin to bashfulness and embarrassment at being caught mid-fight by a pale and dizzy Isogai who was halfway to fainting.

 

“Isogai—” The blue haired boy started.

 

Across the room a door flung open and another two characters entered. Isogai’s world swayed again as he tried to keep himself upright and not bent-over-throwing-up-blood. His hand trailed up his face thickly fumbling over the _bandages_ tied there.

 

The foremost of the new intruders was huge. That much Isogai could make out through his swimming vision. He towered over each of them, with a bulk load of bulging muscles. As if demonstrate that they weren’t just for show, he clasped one hand on Nagisa’s collar and hoisted him into the air with absolutely no effort. The man Nagisa had pinned to the floor gasped for air, violently.

 

The second new entry walked right up to Isogai and he had trouble making sense of exactly what he was seeing. Whatever it was, it barely came up to his hip, wore a suit, and walked on two legs like a human, but not.

 

Slowly, gently, Isogai brought one hand up to the aching side of his head. His voice was weaker than he meant it to be, “Does anyone else see that… that…”

 

“Giant buff man?” Itona deadpanned unhelpfully, eyes roaming across the bulky figure in a way Isogai knew meant he was examining for weaknesses. His taser crackled but he held off on _pressing it to the woman old enough to be their grandmother._ Isogai wished that made him feel reassured.

 

“Small polar bear?” Nagisa offered instead, sounding rather unconcerned for someone held five feet aloft in the air by his collar.

 

“Mouse?” Another voice said quietly, and it’s only from constant exposure to Nagisa and Koro-sensei that he didn’t flinch when Chiba made himself known on his other side.

 

“Hello!” The mouse-bear-dog greeted, and the shock of it was honestly enough that Isogai was sure that any minute now he’d be reuniting with Koro-sensei and Yukimura-sensei, because for the _love of god_ either his brain was bleeding or some messed up scientist had decided to mess with antimatter particles again. Despite how much Isogai loves his life, he would much rather the former be happening than the latter. Chiba placed a steadying hand on Isogai’s suddenly swaying shoulder.

 

“Never Fear! For I Am HERE!” The huge man declared, entirely too peppy for the situation. “Surrender at once or I shall be forced to restrain you!”

 

It wasn’t friendly for someone grinning so broadly, and Isogai hadn’t liked the term “restrain” ever since the Reaper had held him and his class hostage with the intent on killing them to kill Koro-sensei. But the last thing they needed was to escalate the situation, whatever it might be, any more than it already was.

 

Itona beat him to the punch.

 

“You can't do anything," Itona told the huge man, matter of fact as always. "You're injured." He turned the taser in his hand and used the non-electrified end to jab it sharply into the man's right side. The man yelped, a smattering of blood spitting out of his mouth as he reactively curled in on the side, and Nagisa’s eyes widened just a fraction when he was suddenly dropped to the ground.

 

Almost as quickly as he hits the floor, though, white wrappings sprung around him, pinning Nagisa’s arms to his sides. Itona let out a muffled shout when the same wrappings roped him around the stomach and yanked him off of the older lady so violently the taser tumbled from his fingertips.

 

“Itona!” Isogai said, “Nagisa!”

 

The man Nagisa had pinned to the floor climbed back up to his feet, hands tightly gripping the opposite edges of the wrappings. His tired eyes narrowed at them, and Isogai got the feeling they just pissed off someone they really shouldn’t have.

 

“Chiba,” Isogai said urgently, not taking his eyes off of the man restraining his friends.

 

Chiba shook his head, “Nothing on me,” He confirmed, and Isogai gritted his teeth in frustration, but nodded stiffly nonetheless.

 

“Right,” Isogai said, straightening his spine and putting as much steel into his gaze as he could, and unfurling _Yumma Isogai, Class President of 3-E, Assassin,_ from his shell, “What do you want.”   


(It might have been more effective if his entire world hadn’t swam again halfway through the sentence and Isogai had to force his nausea down.)

 

“What do _we_ want?” The bear-mouse- _thing_ repeated. None of the enemy batted an eye at its appearance, “Young man, _you_ are the ones who appeared in my office with a dead body!”

 

For someone who had spent a year planning to kill his teacher, and then actually succeeded, Isogai shouldn’t have been as horrified as he was. His gaze sharpened, and ran over his three ex-classmates. None of them were dressed like they were going to the same place, but Isogai thought that was to be expected. They hadn’t seen each other all together since the weekend after graduation nearly a  year ago. While Isogai was still in his school uniform, Chiba was dressed nicer than Isogai had ever seen him. Both Itona and Nagisa were wearing casual clothes, but Itona was clearly far worse for wear: the beginnings of several bruises on his arms and scrapes on his palms. Chiba and Nagisa shook their heads in denial while Itona scowled.

 

“He shot Terasaka.” The white haired boy said.

 

Isogai’s head pounded. The words didn’t make sense to him. Terasaka? Being shot? _Why?_

 

“How about we stick to the basics,” the man holding Nagisa and Itona said, in a tone that made it clear it was not a suggestion, “Who are you?”

 

“Aizawa, they’re children!” The huge man said smearing away the blood trickling from his (still grinning) mouth. He bent over slightly to help the older woman to her feet, which she returned with a violent slapping of his overly large hands away.

 

The other man, Aizawa, scowled darker, “That child—” He jerks on Nagisa’s bindings, just enough for the blue haired boy to wince, “—just nearly choked me to death.”

 

“If it helps,” Nagisa offered weakly, in a tone of voice that made Isogai think that, _no, it really wouldn’t,_ “I was just trying to knock you unconscious.”

 

Itona managed to play his laugh off as a cough. Isogai didn’t think it was possible, but Aizawa’s expression turned even more sour.

 

Chiba’s hand pressed into Isogai’s shoulder, a sturdy anchor in the sea of head pain. He tried to focus, but it was getting hard to see straight. They were weaponless in an unknown environment. Isogai might have been prepared to fight their way out of the situation if Nagisa and Itona weren’t already wrapped up. By the time they’d free themselves, they’d have to deal with that Aizawa guy and the huge man. From what he remembered, Chiba wasn’t exactly the best at hand to hand (which was fine because the guy was an expert with a gun), and Isogai really wished the floor would stop _moving_.

 

He wouldn’t be any use in a fight. Not even against this dog-bear-mouse hat was still looking at him pleasantly. In fact, all of them were looking at him. It took him a moment to realize that his friends were waiting for him to lead them. Nagisa’s head was tilted at just an angle that spoke in volumes, _“I can fight even with my arms pinned down.”_ And Itona was completely motionless, but his stance was a compressed spring, and his fingers were already wrapped around a second taser he’d slipped out of his pocket. Even Chiba seemed to have analyzed the room enough nod at him that he had a plan of attack. If Isogai gave the word, they’d start another fight and they’d make Koro-sensei proud.

 

Isogai wasn’t sure how they got here, or what had happened, but he knew he needed to keep his friends safe. He knew they would try their hardest, but he doubted Karasuma would have been able to take on that huge man, regardless of his weaknesses. If they fought, there wasn’t going to a good outcome.

 

So that left it up to him to figure out how to do this diplomatically. No fighting. In which case he couldn’t let the pain get to him. Not when he was holding his friends lives in his hands. He really wished that Karasuma had taught them exactly what to do in hostage situations. Koro-sensei probably had left them a whole chapter about it in their guidebooks, but Isogai had barely made it through the first chapter before his tears had threatened to ruin the penmanship.

 

He looked at the bear-mouse-dog-thing and took a deep breath. Isogai felt stupid thinking it was the most reasonable looking of all of them. He took a step forward.

 

And his legs promptly buckled and he went down.

 

“Isogai!”

 

“Sss’fine…” He slurred, floppily waving one hand in Chiba’s direction as he tried to get to his feet. His vision was swimming black and the floor wouldn’t stop swaying, but he managed to get up to one knee before he buckled again.

 

“Isogai.” Chiba grasped both of his shoulders, whether to support him or prevent him from standing he really didn’t know, “Stop, you’re hurt.”

 

Isogai attempted to speak, to protest, because he was their leader and this was his _job_ , but his tongue turned thick and heavy and all that came out was some half-slurred gibberish as Isogai weakly flared his arms in the directions of their adversaries in what was _supposed_ to be a calm gesture to show Chiba that he didn’t really have time to sit down and wait for the room to stop spinning.

 

“Right, that’s enough.” The grandmotherly woman who Itona almost tasered spoke up, voice firm with no room for argument, “This young man is in no shape to be doing _anything_ but lying down and getting some _rest!_ ”

 

“An excellent idea, Chiyo!” The dog-bear-mouse hummed, “You, young sir, would you mind helping your friend back on that bed?”

 

Chiba nodded, silent as ever, but the gentle way he handled it when Isogai's full weight fell on him, spoke in volumes. He shot Nagisa a pained apologetic look, and Nagisa returned it with a quirk of his lips that looked far too much like Karma.

 

“Aizawa, I believe you may let them go,” the animal continued, “There has been some sort of misunderstanding. I'm sure we can discuss this without anyone being held down, correct?”

 

“Itona…” Isogai trailed, stumbling to his feet as Chiba lifted him off the floor and back on the bed, “ _Taser_.”

 

Itona sighed, but used what little range of motion his wrist had to slip his second weapon back into his pocket, before turning an expectant gaze on Aizawa. The older man gave them both a dark look, but he loosened the wrappings and retracted them back to a bundle around his neck. Nagisa rubbed his arms, but quickly jumped around another medical cot to land on Isogai’s other side. Itona kept a sharp eye on the other men in the room, his shoulders loose, but ready to defend.

 

The older lady, Chiyo, scurried past the others, as Isogai settled back on the bed. Almost as soon as he’d laid back down, the rhythmic pounding in his head quieted down. He tried not to wince at it, but from the way Chiba squeezed his shoulder, he was pretty sure he failed.

 

“Sorry,” He said.

 

“Come on, Isogai,” Nagisa said, with a soft smile that reminded him of all the times Nagisa took down adults twice his size, “This isn’t your fault.”

 

“Toshinori,” The animal said, “I believe we can handle everything from here. You have a student to congratulate, correct?”

 

“Young Midoriya will certainly be looking for me.” The huge man’s grin seemed to broaden, “Are you sure, sir?”

 

The bear-mouse-dog rolled a chair over to the bedside, seemingly unbothered by the calculated look Chiba sent it’s way. It waved in the huge mans direction, a dismissal if Isogai had ever seen one before. The man nodded towards the other man in the room (who decidedly did not return the gesture) and left the room as quickly as he had come. Isogai wasn’t sure if it was the pain making him see things, but he could have sworn the other man was starting to _smoke_.

 

The white animal, though, climbed on top of the chair—a feat that was somewhat surprising given that the seat was taller than it was—and made itself comfortable at the eye level of Nagisa and Chiba.

 

“ _What_ are you?” Chiba asked.

 

“Am I a dog? Or a mouse? Or a bear?” The animal pondered, “I am most importantly… Nedzu, the principal!”

 

“Principal?” Nagisa echoed.

 

Chiba nodded at the Nedzu, as if he had just accepted it easily despite the lack of an actual answer. Isogai’s head swam again, turning the overhead lights a faint purple for a second. Chiyo rearranged the pillows around him with a distasteful click of her tongue, ignoring the way that the rest of them were watching her every move.

 

“Yes!” Nedzu said expertly, “The Principal of U.A., which is where you are right now.”

 

“U.A.” Isogai tried to remember if he had come across any high schools with that name during his search. It didn’t ring any bells, but they were all still speaking Japanese so it couldn’t have been far.

 

“Do you remember how you got here?” Nedzu asked.

 

Nagisa rubbed his neck, picking at the subtle shortness of it. He looked different without his hair up in the ponytails, but he appeared more comfortable than before. “There was this teal light,” he said, “Karma and I were at the movies. Someone pulled out a gun and when Karma tried to disarm him, they shot him with it, and… then he was gone. It was like he just vanished into the air.” Nagisa’s voice strained, “Then the light hit me.”

 

“Terasaka pushed me out of the way.” Itona said in a monotone that was far too even to be real. Isogai watched him clench his fists and stared at the bruises on Itona’s arms. “There were two attackers. I took one down with me.”

 

Chiba just nodded again. Isogai wasn’t sure but he thought there was a bit of a flush to his cheeks under his dark bangs.

 

Isogai blinked as he tried to remember. He had been at school...no later than that. He had been studying school work like he had done every other night with— “Kataoka!” He tried to prop himself back up, “I was with Kataoka! I was leaving her house and I just saw the light! Where is she—errg!”

 

“Hush, child,” Chiyo said, leveraging him back onto the bed. “Just lie down, now.”

 

With the lights blurring between green and orange, Isogai didn’t think he had another option but to listen to her. He gritted his teeth to fight the swell of sickness that accompanied the pain. Black fog danced in the edge of his vision, threatening to overtake him.

 

Nedzu hummed again, “Now if you don’t mind me asking, what are your quirks?”

 

“Quirks?” Nagisa said with a frown. “What does that mean?”

 

“I can cook goldfish,” Isogai offered, watching the way the ceiling tiles danced across the ceiling in a flurry of colors, “Maehara always says that’s pretty quirky… Does that count?”

 

Nagisa and Chiba looked at him worriedly.

 

He really missed Maehara. Especially since whenever Isogai was sick, the blond boy always ditched class to spend the day with him, watching reruns of cartoons and doing his best to crack jokes that kept Isogai’s mind off the pain.

 

“He means your ability,” Aizawa said sternly.

 

“Ability?” Nagisa rolled the word around his mouth. He looked at Nedzu again frowning. “I don’t think we understand.”

 

“The moon,” Itona said quietly, almost too quietly.

 

“There’s time for understanding later,” Chiyo said bumping her way between Nedzu and Chiba. “That boy needs to heal. Mr. Principal, if I may?”

 

Itona leaned back and grabbed Nagisa’s shoulder without turning away from the direction he was facing. Isogai thought there might have been a window over there, in the midst of the fight and the pain he hadn’t noticed anything other than it was dark outside. “It’s a full moon.”

 

“Please, Recovery Girl.” Nedzu said folding his paws calmly.

 

“Hey—”

 

“Wait—”

 

There was a brief, panicked moment where Isogai could feel the press of lips against his cheek, then the throbbing in his head muted to a dull pain, and Isogai couldn’t help but sigh in relief. He blinked sluggishly in the direction of the others, taking in briefly the borderline horror on Itona’s face, and couldn’t figure out why before his eyes slipped shut. And then—

 

Nothing.


	3. Boys Don't Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only problem with Karma Akabane was that his definition of “things going wrong” was vastly different from Hiroto Maehara’s.

The thing about Karma Akabane was that he was really good at getting all his friends out of dangerous situations. He had proved his cleverness and his resourcefulness time and time again: when he had first introduced himself to the class with bits of a cut up knife strapped to his palm, when he had gone head-to-head with the pro assassin, Grip, and won, when he had manipulated their way through the international military defenses so that they could beat the clock to Koro-sensei. He was a genius with a sadistic streak, but he was always there to save his friends when things were going wrong.

 

The only problem with Karma Akabane was that his definition of “things going wrong” was  _ vastly  _ different from Hiroto Maehara’s.

 

Point proven by the way Maehara was sitting in a bar, doing his best to look intimidating in just a pair pikachu pajama pants. He gritted his teeth against the chill of the mostly empty room and tried not to think too hard about how much he wanted a shirt. If Karma managed to talk their way out of whatever the fuck had happened, Maehara silently pledged to start wearing a shirt to bed. 

 

Beside him Hayami stood, stone faced as ever. Maehara didn't think he had ever seen her without a straight face (regardless of that one picture Koro-Sensei had of her gushing over a kitten that simply  _ had  _ to be photoshopped). He had a vague memory of her appearing out of the teal light right beside him, with a face of terror, but he had passed out right afterwards. When he had woken up, Hayami had told him not to speak a word. 

 

He'd seen what the girl could do with a knife, and a gun, and her bare fists. So, he was quietly sitting there arms crossed and cold, goosebumps prickled across his skin. 

 

It was also the first time he’d been in a legitimate bar. The geeky part of him desperately wanted to throw himself on one of the stolls and demand “the usual” in his best American 1920’s accent. Isogai would have found it hilarious, knowing both of their shared interest in history, even if Maehara was miserable at memorization. (Social studies  _ was _ his worst subject after all, but it was a good thing for his grades that it was his friend’s best.)

 

But there was no bartender there to serve them, and Maehara was  _ definitely _ not old enough to be drinking anything. Unless of course they were hiding a six-pack of ginger ale behind the counter—which Maehara would dearly welcome considering how violently nauseous he was— but considering the atmosphere of the place and the people who ran it (which was the primary source of said nausea), he  _ really _ doubted it. 

 

“Bastard,” Terasaka grunted in an explosive breath. He slammed his fist on the bar counter, gritting his teeth in the direction of the  _ employees only _ door, “What the hell is taking him so long, huh?”

 

“Be patient,” Hayami ordered, voice quiet but firm. Terasaka scowled at her.

 

“I don’t like that bastard calling all the shots behind closed doors!”

 

“You don’t like him regardless,” Maehara said and immediately clamped his mouth shut when Hayami’s gaze turned on him. The dim mood lighting of the bar turned her calculating green eyes into venomous pools, and Maehara had enough self-preservation to not point out the hypocrisy in giving  _ Terasaka _ free reign of his mouth while Maehara’s was bolted shut. “Shutting up now.”

 

“Tch,” Terasaka clicked his tongue, “That asshole needs someone to keep him in check. He gets over excited in enemy territory and it’s a pain.”

 

“Isn’t that what Nagisa is for?— _ I swear I’m shutting up now! _ ”

 

Maehara threw his head back and stared at the ceiling. He hated all kinds waiting games, and probably would never understand Isogai’s fascination with them. When they played chess together, Isogai was always the winner: Maehara just didn’t have the attention span to plan so many moves ahead, and struggled even more when small things didn’t go according to his haphazard plans. He never felt particularly bad about that, it wasn’t like there  _ were _ many people who could keep up with Isogai in a game of strategy in the first place, much less defeat him. (Asano had found that out the hard way, and Maehara liked to think the prick was still smarting from where he had hit the ground after that amazing bo-taoshi defeat during their athletics festival). 

 

“I don’t understand why— _ hey _ !” Maehara ducked as Hayami batted him on the side of the head, and it wasn’t one of her lighter hits. “Just tell me why I’m not supposed to be talking!”

 

“Because you’re annoying.” Terasaka said without much preamble. He made a point to crack his knuckles loudly in the mostly empty room. “You lose all credibility the moment your stupid mouth opens.”

 

“That’s not true! Come on!” Maehara looked between the two of them, but their blank stares said it all. His shoulders dropped. Hayami tapped two of her fingers on her crossed arms and  her eyes returned to staring at the door their de facto leader had disappeared through with the other two—

 

Well Maehara couldn’t exactly call them “men”. One guy had skin so flaky a part of Maehara was  _ itching  _ to introduce the concept of lotion to him, wispy blue hair, and an actual severed hand clasped over the majority of his face. His raspy tone had vibrated each and every one of Maehara’s atoms and although his choice of words sound like an overgrown seven year old brat, the assassin had no doubt this guy was dangerous with a capital “D”. There was an aura about him that Maehara recognized from that night Yanagisawa had injected himself with the tentacles in an attempted to kill them all, something desperate and more than a little bloodthirsty. 

 

And then the other guy was made completely of purple mist.

 

Maehara had seen a lot of weird, freaky stuff before: A teacher that could dodge a barrage of bullets and turn his body to a molten grey matter, a military designed assassination robot that downloaded herself into their phones for funsies, and two different kids his age with sentient tentacles growing from their heads that had apparently asked them questions and nearly killed them. He was slightly disappointed that after all of  _ that _ , there were still things out there that caught him off guard.

 

Not to mention that he had ended up here without a clue as to what had happened, although Hayami made it clear that they were attacked, through her grated palms and the tears in her leggings. But Maehara didn’t remember a fight; he remembered a knock on the door, assuming it was his pizza, and then being very disappointed when a teal blue light eradicated his plans for a horror movie marathon. 

 

Then waking up and being  _ doubly  _ disappointed when he realized he had no other clothes, and no phone. Based on the appearance of their hosts, Maehara had to assume that they were somewhere freaky,  _ possibly otherworldly _ . He doubted that his phone service covered alternate dimensions, but he would have felt better if he could have even tried to send Isogai a heads up about missing their hang out this weekend.

 

And really that bummed him more than anything else.

 

Would Isogai think that he just blew him off? He wouldn’t, right? They’d been friends since they were kids and Isogai knew him  _ better _ than that. He would move heaven and hell to make it to one of their meetups, to see Isogai again, to see that brilliant, optimistic smile one more time.

 

(But who wouldn’t? It’s  _ Isogai _ . If you didn’t simply adore him, you deserved to be punched in the face. Even  _ Terasaka  _ liked him.)

 

Terasaka grunted again, “He better hurry up.”

 

“He has a plan,” Hayami said, cooly. Maehara wondered if she actually believed that or was just really hoping that he did. 

 

Maehara had seen Karma cripple a trained military guard with one of his infamous schemes, but even then he had a week to do recon, gather their supplies, and strategize. Maehara didn’t know what plan he could possibly formulate in three minutes that saved all their lives before Mr. Smokey and Creepy Helping Hand Man decided it was time for them to say goodbye to this life, and greet Koro-sensei again all too soon. 

 

If it came down to fighting, Maehara knew they’d be sorely out matched. Terasaka had a killer left hook, but that was pretty useless against a guy that didn’t have an actual body. Hayami probably wouldn’t have a problem against the other guy, but that was also assuming there wasn’t anything unforeseen going on. Maehara himself was pretty wicked with a knife, but short of raiding the bar (which he did  _ not _ want to do, those creepy guys could be coming back any minute and even if Karma’s general personality didn’t make them want to start a fight, Maehara rifling through their shit for a weapon definitely would) there was nothing he could do. 

 

Except wait, of course. Maehara sighed, folding his arms on the sleek bar counter and pillowing his head between them, face tilted to the side so that he could see the door Karma had disappeared behind, leaving them with nothing but a wink and one of his signature sharp smiles. 

 

A reassurance, if it had been coming from or given to anyone else, but in reality it was a promise that Karma would work things out, and make things  _ fine _ , even if their two definitions wildly differed. But maybe Maehara wasn't being fair. Karma’s definition of fine in this situation was probably “get everyone out alive” with a good chance of “figure out how to get home” for good measure, which Maehara admitted, he’d totally be behind. In fact, he’d be  _ so _ behind it that he’d willingly deal with almost any convoluted plan that Karma came up with as long as things were “fine.” And if Karma managed to land him a shirt and a ticket home before this weekend so he could still make his hang out with Isogai while he was at it? Maehara would go along with  _ anything _ short of murder and maybe helping him hold the international space station hostage again.  _ Maybe _ . 

 

He had almost convinced himself that if he fell back asleep he’d wake up on the couch with his pizza half eaten and the end credits for  _ Scream  _ rolling through his TV, when the door Karma had gone through flung back open and spiraling black and purple mist poured out.

 

Terasaka spit out a curse, squaring his fists for a fight. Hayami kicked over the barstool she was hovering by and propelled herself over the counter for coverage.

 

Maehara had just enough time to think  _ “Wow, they killed Karma”  _ before he caught sight of an object spinning out the darkness. Something small and deadly sailing through the air far faster than was probably safe. But Maehara had gone to bat against Koro-sensei’s fast ball. He caught the knife long before it had any chance of impaling him.

 

The pants caught him by surprise though. Good standard cargo pants, completely black and from the looks of it, exactly Maehara’s size. He blinked between the dark fabric and the weapon in confusion. 

 

Terasaka snatched another outfit and weapon pair out of the air and immediately snarled at it. “What the hell is this?!”

 

Moments later, Hayami held up her own turtleneck to the dim light with a frown. There was red “B” engraved on the neck.

 

Then Karma Akabane stepped out of the mist with a smile that Maehara had come to classify as “blood thirsty.” It was the same smile that crossed Karma’s face when he burst Koro-sensei’s tentacle with a single squeeze of his hand, the same smile that crossed his face when he faced off against Nagisa in civil war, and, according to Isogai, the same smile that crossed his face while he eagerly bounced on his heels in preparation to duke it out with the professional assassin, Grip.

 

Maehara was suddenly vividly reminded of just how differently their perspectives on situations often were, including their definition of “fine.” There was no  _ way _ Karma’s definition of “fine” didn’t involve at least three convoluted and sadistic ways for him to have fun while they killed time trying to get home. 

 

It took a moment for Maehara to realize, too focused on the glint in Karma’s eyes and the vicious sharpness of his smile, but Karma had swapped out his own clothes for a near identical version of what he’d tossed over to them. Formal slacks, a turtleneck, a belt with a knife holster on either hip and a large red “K” pressed against the side of his neck. Arrogance was spilling off of him in waves, dripping like blood from his smile and shining violently in his eyes, and as Maehara took it in it felt  _ wrong _ , because for all of Karma’s bluster against Asano, Maehara and the rest of the E-Class  _ knew _ that Karma wasn’t nearly as cocky as he came across. At least, not any more. 

 

That’s why, when Maehara’s eyes flickered up and caught on the sharp black crown draped over his bright hair, the dread that sunk in his stomach was quickly smothered. Karma was a genius tactician, a brilliant asshole, and one of the only people Maehara would willingly admit was smarter than Isogai, but Karma wasn’t a  _ leader _ . Not in  _ that _ way, at least. He wasn’t truly a leader like Asano, a King; he was a leader like Isogai, a  _ general _ . 

 

“Your uniforms,” Karma said, crossing his arms over his chest in self satisfaction. 

 

“I’m gonna regret asking this,” Maehara started, forehead screwing up, “But uniforms for what? What did you  _ do _ ?”

 

“Put the shirt on, Rook.” Karma told him as he breezed through the bar like he had been living there for his entire life. Behind him, the creepy hand guy stepped out of the mist scratching at his neck with one hand, but the height of his shoulders told Maehara he was far from being upset or even irritated,

 

The guy looked... _ giddy _ .

 

Hayami’s eyes narrowed slightly. She turned her back to them and without hesitation tugged her shirt over her head. Maehara  _ felt  _ his brain short circuit.  _ What kind of  _ witchcraft _ did Karma possess that-- _ He felt a fist slam down on his head, and it was a matter of luck that he didn’t bite straight through his tongue.

 

“Less gawking, more changing,” Terasaka growled forcefully, averting his eyes as he stripped. Maehara couldn’t find an argument. He dragged a turtleneck over his bare chest, thankful for a shirt of any type, regardless of the pit in his stomach at the sight of red “R” on his neck. A peek at Terasaka showed he had a red “P” in the same location of his sweater, right over the carotid artery. 

 

“Akabane,” Terasaka swore in a low warning tone as soon as he was changed, and Maehara thought he saw a vein pop on the other’s forehead.

 

“I’m the King,” Karma said pointing to himself, voice far too gleeful for Maehara’s taste, and something in him realized he  _ definitely _ wouldn’t be able to make his hangout session with Isogai that weekend, “You’re my pieces.”

 

“Like Chess,” Hayami said softly. She pulled down her hair and proceeded to retie it in her usual style of two twin pigtails.  _ Shit _ , she really meant business didn’t she? 

 

“Yes, exactly like chess,” Karma agreed, but the excitement in his eyes didn’t die away. “Human chess!” Karma turned the force of his grin on Maehara and winked, “And against my favorite player too, how lucky, huh?”

 

His… favorite player? For a moment Maehara’s mind flashed to Asano, but _no,_ because for all the two of them were pitted against each other in grades, when it came to strategy there was only one person he knew that had gone against the Principal’s son undefeated. The same person who’d started playing chess with Karma during third term and still played with him online near constantly almost a year later. 

 

“Isogai?” Maehara’s voice came out as more of a croak than he would have liked, “He’s  _ here?” _

 

Karma nodded, smile slipping slightly before it returned full force, “He was shot by a third party in front of Kataoka’s house. She disarmed the guy, and he got away,” Karma shrugged, holding his hands out in a  _ well, what can you do _ kind of manner, “I barely finished reading her text before Nagisa and I were attacked too.” 

 

For a second, a very brief second, Maehara let the unrestrained relief bleed from his body: Isogai wasn’t gonna think that he blew him off. If his best friend didn’t end up here in this bar, they’d find him and then Karma and Isogai would work together to get them all back home before they died, and with as few of Karma’s sadistic side schemes as possible. Isogai wouldn’t rest until then, and Maehara would follow his best friend to the ends of the earth.

 

The next second, something slammed into the side of his head, leaving Maehara with a smarting pain in his left temple. Karma's dead and useless phone clattered to the floor at Maehara’s feet.

 

_ “What the hell!” _

 

“Don’t get too excited, Maehara,” Karma said, tone dangerous, “You’re part of my team and you’ll follow my orders to take him out.”

 

“What’s your game?” Terasaka demanded, before Maehara could process  _ anything  _ the other boyhad said. The gruff delinquent of class 3-E tugged on the collar of his shirt as if he was trying to split the seams and open it up.

 

“Chess, mostly,” Karma said easily, “Pokemon, too. Oh, and poker if—”

 

Terasaka slammed a fist on the bar counter again, “Not. What. I. Meant.” 

 

Karma brushed him off, “I don’t expect  _ you  _ to understand. Leaving the thinking to the non-disposables,  _ Pawn _ .” He turned to Hayami and by extension, Maehara, “Here’s what you need to know: By some happenstance, the four of us have been transported to this new world, where a near eighty percent of the population has supernatural abilities, called “quirks.” We’re lucky our hosts here, Shigaraki-sama—” He waved to the Handy Man, “—and Kurogiri-san are particularly powerful.” The purple mist solidified back into a vague humanoid form.

 

“Isogai and part of his court have also been transported here, which means it's our chance to get rid of that pest once and for all.” 

 

It took Maehara a moment to figure out what it meant, all of it: the new clothes, Karma’s sudden bloodlust, the chess. And—since when did Karma use “-sama” for  _ anyone? _ But the second it did, his stomach lurched, dread flooding over each of his limbs like a tsunami of  _ “oh fuck no.” _ Karma wasn’t  _ that  _ crazy, was he?

 

He stole a glance at Terasaka and Hayami, the former rolling his eyes with an unsatisfied grunt, and the latter nodding like a soldier who had just been given her orders to carry out. Neither seemed particularly surprised at what Karma had cooked up. But considering that they’d both been on Karma’s team in the civil war, while Maehara had been on Isogai’s-—

 

And then it clicked. It suddenly made sense then, why Hayami had been insistent that Maehara keep quiet, why Terasaka made that vague comment about him losing credibility when he spoke, why Karma had chucked his phone at the side of Maehara’s head. 

 

He was an honest person.

 

And Karma had just decided they were playing villains.


	4. About This Little Boy Who Came From Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itona raised his hand.
> 
> “What, Horibe?” Aizawa’s voice cut across the crowd again, sending them all spiralling into brief silence.
> 
> “Itona.” He automatically corrected, and then after a pause, “If I volunteer to be expelled now then does that mean I don’t have to do these dumb tests?”
> 
> ***  
> (aka 21 pages of Itona being a little shit)

Itona wasn’t having too hard a time understanding this whole alternate universe thing. He wasn’t having a hard time understanding this whole quirks thing, either. Hell, he didn’t even struggle to understand why the people they literally dropped in on with a dead body wanted to keep an eye on them until they could be sent back. 

 

What Itona  _ did _ have trouble understanding, however, is why the  _ fuck _ he had to go to their weird hero school in the process.

 

The more he heard of their superhuman society the more Itona wanted to lock himself in a room away from everyone. Heroes? Villains? Immeasurable Power? Itona had seen--  _ felt _ \-- first hand what that power was like. It had almost killed him, and even if Terasaka was one of the stupidest people he had ever met, Itona did unfortunately owe him. (Twice now, Terasaka had done something stupid to try and help him. Twice now, Terasaka had ignored his own safety to guarantee Itona’s. Twice now, Itona had  _ let  _ him.)

 

If Itona had been in charge he would have demanded, by force if necessary, that the four of them be placed anywhere other than their hero school. But Isogai was calling the shots, and Itona couldn’t bring himself to be mad at him for agreeing. 

 

The Principal had made the class sound inviting. Being right alongside people with these quirks who were learning how to save others? Koro-sensei had stressed that when nurturing their skills: their second blade wasn’t for themselves, it was for the people they were protecting. 

 

Itona’s second blade was robotics, and he’d be much more happy if Nedzu had left him with a bunch of old circuit boards and a screwdriver.

 

Aizawa had been against it on the premise that they shouldn’t be split up in the school, but Itona had a sneaking suspicion the old guy just didn’t trust them. (Rightfully so, considering it had taken Itona all of a one second to notice the obvious weakness in their top hero and another five exploit it, while Nagisa had managed to catch the Aizawa, himself, in a choke hold almost immediately after waking up.) Which was probably why they’d been placed into that man’s class so he could keep an eye on them at all times, much to  _ everyone’s  _ distress.

 

And, well, Itona was notoriously petty for a reason, because as Aizawa led all four of him to the classroom--almost an  _ hour and a half _ before classes were going to begin, no less, and then immediately proceeded to ditch them to go nap in the teachers lounge-- Itona casually slipped the man’s cell phone from his pocket, and had spent the past forty-five minutes in a near silent classroom vindictively taking it apart. 

 

It was good to know that even on an alternate world, circuitry was still the same as it had ever been. 

 

It didn't help that Itona hated their school uniforms, too. He wanted his normal shirt back because it had been a stupid gift from Muramatsu advertising his family’s ramen shop, and the irrational part of him kept whispering that he'd lose it in this world and never get it back. At least he still had his headband to keep his willy white locks out of his eyes as he reconfigured the tiny circuit board of the phone with his pocket sized set of tools for emergencies.

 

This was all petty preamble. They shouldn't be bothering with class when they still had yet to figure out how they got there, or how to get back. Not to mention the possibility that Terasaka was also out there, possibly with Karma (which was just asking for chaos), and whoever else might have been hit by the light. 

 

“What are you doing with Aizawa-sensei’s phone?” Isogai had held it together pretty well so far, but there was still an anxious edge to his voice as he hovered over Itona’s desk. The heavy bandages from the last night were thankfully gone now, and left in their place was a simple piece of gauze taped high enough on Isogai’s forehead that it was mostly covered by his dark bangs. 

 

“Taking it apart,” Itona responded, not looking up, “It’s for stress. I do it with my phone a lot.” Of course, Itona failed to mention that unlike with his own, he had no intention of putting Aizawa’s back together unless it involved messing up the internal hardware by taking out the battery or forgetting to put back a few wires. Isogai was still hovering, though, so Itona attempted to look innocent.

 

A desk away, Chiba and Nagisa were both pouring over a history textbook that Aizawa had left them with. Between the discussion with Nedzu and the access to everyday school supplies, Nagisa had spent most of the night and early morning reading through the basics on this world. If Itona had cared at all about trying to fit in, he might have attempted to do something similar, but instead he had eaten the ramen Aizawa had given them for dinner, taken apart Isogai’s phone and rebuilt it twice as better (in theory), and went to sleep when he had gotten bored of it. 

 

Between the four of them, they couldn’t get any of their phones to turn back on. Something about interdimensional travel seemed to have fried them in addition to the spiderweb cracks all across Itona’s possession that made it unuseable. Aizawa’s however worked perfectly fine. Once Itona had bypassed the fingerprint lock, he had access to the whole world. Isogai would have wanted to take advantage of it, but Itona went through and erased all the wifi connections, switched the ringtones, and manually changed the time zone so that all of the teacher’s alarms would be off by an hour. Then he removed the battery.

 

Isogai sighed, “We’re in way over our heads, aren’t we?”

 

“We’ll be fine,” Nagisa said, glancing up from the book with an encouraging smile, “We’re Koro-sensei’s students.”

 

It was an uplifting statement, but Itona wished he hadn’t said it. A year had put a lot of distance between them and the death of their teacher, but Itona still felt a sizeable lump when he was mentioned. All the reporters wanted to know if they were brainwashed, all their new classmates wanted to know what he was like, and Itona just wanted to build a few remote controlled tanks and blow them all up.

 

They were Koro-sensei’s students, assassins, but they were also kids who were stuck in an alternate dimension with no foreseeable way home.

 

Itona didn’t have parents who would be worrying about him, but he knew that Chiba had three younger sisters, Isogai had a periodically sick mother and two younger siblings, and Nagisa had two parents who were  _ really  _ trying to work out their past problems for him. Itona thought it was unfair  _ he  _ was the one worrying the most about not being able to get back home. If they didn’t make it back in the week, in the year,  _ ever,  _ who was gonna miss him in the long run beyond their class? No one. 

 

But Isogai was going places, Nagisa had plans, and Chiba probably was dreaming of his girlfriend (were they a thing yet? Did Itona care?). Even if Itona didn’t have anything worth running back to, he’d take apart a million phones to get the rest of them back there.

 

“It says here that the use of quirks are prohibited all throughout middle school.” Nagisa said, “That’s perfect! No one should know how to use their quirks effectively right now. We can pretend to have them to fit in with the class!”

 

“Really?” Isogai pressed against the desk overlooking the text, “I don’t know if we can keep up a lie about that. What if someone asks us to prove it?”

 

“Well if we pick things that can’t be proven, or disproven, like…” Nagisa trailed off, with a mellow version of a face that Itona vaguely remembered Karma had. 

 

“Luck,” Chiba suggested quietly.

 

“Luck?” Isogai repeated.

 

“That’s good!” Nagisa said brightly, “Isogai you can have luck as your pretend quirk!”

 

Isogai looked uncomfortable with the notition. “Are you sure? What will Aizawa-sensei say?”

 

“Nothing,” Itona piped up, “He doesn’t want to draw anymore attention to us than we already have.”

 

“Are you planning on giving that phone back?” Isogai asked.

 

Itona shrugged, which was more honest of an answer than anything else. Nagisa leaned back and sat in one of the chairs facing them. He looked like he was about to say something, but at that moment the door at the front of the classroom slid open.

 

Itona’s hand twitched for his tasers (although Aizawa had insisted he leave both in their makeshift dorm room), and out of the corner of his eye he saw Nagisa shift his pencil into a reverse knife grip almost unconsciously as Chiba’s shoulders tensed and Isogai’s back straightened. Once an assassin, always an assassin, Itona supposed.

 

However the person that came in the room was the last person Itona would have guessed ever needed assassinating. He looked like a square: tall, straight posture like someone had replaced his spine with a metal pipe, neatly cropped blue hair that parted to the left, glasses, and a perfectly tailored school uniform. He was physically fit, but it only took a moment for Itona to guess what his quirk was: something to do with the massive width of his calves that just so happen to be shaped like car engines with exhaust pipes.

 

If Itona had cared any he might have felt dumb for the way his own red tie was loosely draped around his neck, and the sleeves of the school jacket were rolled up to his elbows to prevent them from impeding his hands. But as it stood, Itona didn’t care that he looked every bit of the delinquent Terasaka had become friends with.

 

The newcomer waved his arms at right angles clearly surprised by their presences. “Hello! I’m Tenya Iida! This is the hero class A-1, correct? I’m delighted to see there are others who prioritize punctuality! As to be expected from the number one school for heroes!”

 

Itona glanced at the clock in the room. Did this guy seriously show up thirty minutes before class? For  _ fun _ ? The guy had engines in his  _ legs _ . He could have probably slept in for another twenty minutes and still made it to class before Aizawa dragged himself from the teachers’ lounge.

 

Isogai, of course, beamed at the guy. All the traces of his apprehension over quirks and lying forgotten as he stuck his hand out to Iida with one of his warm, charming smiles. Itona could pinpoint the second where Iida decided he’d die for the stranger offering his hand; it was the same moment Itona had decided it too, exactly three heartbeats into looking at the guy with a clear mind.

 

“I’m Yumma Isogai,” Isogai introduced himself, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Iida-kun! These are my friends, Nagisa, Chiba, and Itona.”

 

Nagisa made an awkward wave, while Chiba nodded silently in their direction. Itona rolled his eyes and went back to tinkering. He had long since passed his days of performing for other people. He liked being brutally honest: there was no space for misconceptions or false feelings. Terasaka understood that despite being a blockhead, which was probably why of all the people he stayed in contact with, Itona only ever replied to Terasaka’s messages regularly. 

 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you as well!” Iida declared to them, “Are you all from the same school? Did you get recommended? I don’t recall seeing you at the Entrance Exam.”

 

“It was a last minute thing,” Nagisa smiled somewhat apologetically, rubbing one hand on the back of his neck, “There were, uh, a lot of kids in our class that could’ve gotten the recommendation, but, um, They ended up choosing us.”

 

Well, Itona had to give it to Nagisa: that was an incredibly awkward and yet surprisingly accurate way to describe their current situation. 

 

Iida sliced his hand through the air again, and Itona was beginning to suspect it was a nervous tic, “That is incredibly admirable, Nagisa-kun, that your school could produce so many future potential heroes! You must have gone to a junior high that specialised in heroics! Might I ask which one?!”

 

Definitely a nervous tic, Itona decided, but he was less concerned with his new classmate’s habits, and more with his question. Thankfully, Isogai was quick on his feet.

 

“The credit shouldn’t really go to our school, Iida-kun,” Isogai said, in that half-bashful half-admonishing tone of his, neatly sidestepping the question with a quiet smile, “We all had a wonderful sensei who fostered our skills during our last year of junior high. Truly the credit should go to him.” 

 

If Itona had been one for dramatics (and fuck whatever Terasaka says, because he  _ wasn’t) _ he would have burst into applause. Instead he settled leaning back in the chair so that front two legs were off the ground and letting the corner of his mouth twitch up in a slight smirk.

 

“You are correct, Isogai-kun. Please pardon my assumption!” Iida folded at the waist in a sharp bow which immediately had Isogai backing up with embarrassment.

 

“No, it’s fine!” He said, waving his hands. “Really!”

 

“We just have a huge appreciation for our teacher,” Nagisa added.

 

Iida snapped back to a standing position, much like a rubberband. “Of course! I hope that U.A.’s teachers will indeed surpass your previous expectations for teachers!”

 

Itona thought about the look in Aizawa’s eyes as he realized that he was going to be stuck babysitting them until they found a way home. At first he had thought the look of eternal exhaustion was just because they had caught the man on a bad day, but when he had shown up to the makeshift dorm room that the four assassins had been provided this morning looking exactly the same, Itona had realized that the man  _ always  _ looked dead on his feet.

 

There was literally no comparison between him and Koro-sensei.

 

Itona caught the slim amused smile from Chiba that he was trying to hide behind his textbook. Obviously, he seemed to have come to the same conclusion. 

 

“Fat chance.” Itona deadpanned, and anyone who hadn’t been in Koro-sensei’s class would’ve mistaken Isogai’s wince as one of embarrassment, instead of agreement. “I doubt any of this school’s teachers will be up to our standards.”

 

Iida looked like he had been struck across the face, aghast at the mere  _ suggestion  _ that the country’s top hero school couldn’t be up to anyone’s standards—much less Itona's, whose sharp eyes and messy appearance made him look less like the the technological genius he was, and more like an delinquant dumbass. Itona rocked on his chair and picked at a loose strand in his bandana. He supposed that was what he got for hanging out with Terasaka so often.  

 

For a moment, all Iida did was sputter and point and wave his hands in increasingly distressful slicing motions as Itona stared dully back at him. Then the classroom door slid open again and a girl slipped through with a long black ponytail and a sort of steel in her spine that half reminded Itona of Kataoka. He quickly shook off the thought.

 

“Oh, hello,” She greeted, and Iida turned away from Itona  _ at last _ to enthusiastically greet their new classmate with a firm handshake and a boisterous introduction thats has only the slightest bit of wavering. 

 

Itona sighed, pressed one finger against his temple, and went back to utterly ruining Aizawa’s smartphone. 

 

… 

 

The girl’s name was Momo Yaoyorozu and she was rich. Not that she was bragging about it, or was tossing money at the rest of them, but Itona could see it in the way she presented herself, in the way she spoke. Her body language screamed “higher education” and her hands folded pleasantly in front of her in a way that wasn’t completely natural. Itona got the feeling that she hadn’t been around many casual ordinary people before, but she was doing an alright job at faking it.

 

She was also just as excited to learn as Iida was. Almost before Isogai could introduce them, she had jumped into an excitable ramble about what she hoped the class would be like.

 

Itona tuned it out after she said she would “cherish the opportunity to learn in such an astute environment”.

 

He didn’t understand why everyone seemed to think this school was so amazing. Literally eighty percent of the population had a superpower. If people just took time to learn what they had, they wouldn’t need to even have heroes at all. As far as Itona was aware anyone would go down if you hit them hard enough in the head. People could save themselves, quirk or not.

 

After Momo, came a swarm of other people: A guy with thick lips and spiky brown hair, a girl with ears that turned into aux cords, a guy with a tail, and someone who was invisible (Itona assumed from the skirt it was a female, but he also didn’t care enough to listen). He leaned back in the chair wishing he was anywhere else.

 

Chiba closed his book and was quietly people watching. More people were coming in and Isogai and Nagisa were fencing them before they got to talk to either of the quieter students. It was appreciated, even if Itona never said it. Maybe he’d make something for Isogai when they got back, although he wasn’t sure what a righteous, perfect guy like Isogai could want. (And Itona wasn’t stupid enough to ask; he knew that Isogai would tell him he was fine and didn’t need anything even if he was dying of a deadly disease and Itona had the cure for it in his hand.)

 

Several of the students were already yelling. Some guy with jaded blond hair was already showing off his powers to a guy with a bright red hair-eyes combo. Mini explosions danced in the air along with his maniac smile. A girl with wide eyes wrapped her tongue around a stubby guy with a mohawk made of strange indigo orbs before he managed to flip Momo’s skirt up (not that Itona was  _ watching  _ or anything). A guy with six arms webbed together quietly sat down next to Chiba and joined him in people watching without pushing an introduction from the other.

 

“I must insist that you stop in that incredibly dangerous action at this very moment!” Iida said suddenly reappearing by Itona’s desk. 

 

It took a moment for him to realize what the other meant; he had forgotten that he was balanced on the two legs of the chair. He glanced up at Iida debating the pros and cons of leaning back farther just to spite the other man.

 

“That’s an incredibly unsafe habit!” Iida explained with a wave of his hands in those perfect right angles. “Your probability of falling and receiving a damaging injury that will require you to miss the first day of school is tremendous!”

 

Itona guessed he hadn’t met Recovery Girl before. He sighed and shifted forward again. When the two front legs of his chair touched down Iida smiled, said something praise worthy, and stopped hovering. Another student (green hair, freckles, and a look of complete anxiousness) slipped into the class and Iida’s eyes lit up as he made his way directly over to the boy without any hesitation.

 

Everything was fine for a full seven seconds.

 

“Wow! All four of you got in together?!” A girl said sidestepping Nagisa to lean close-- far too close-- to Itona. The pink skin had thrown him for a moment, as well as her black eyes with yellow irises, and the horns. She looked like some child’s nightmare brought to life and doused in salmon.

 

“That’s so cool!” She said, “What are your quirks?”

 

Isogai grinned good naturedly at her, his mouth open for what was probably a very nice lie.

 

“I don’t have one,” Itona said.

 

He hadn’t spoke very loudly, but it cut across the room like a knife. The abundance of conversations came to a dead halt as the students turned to look at him. Nagisa and Isogai exchanged a frantic look, while Chiba tensed at the sudden attention on all of them.

 

The pink girl, offered up half a laugh, confusion in her eyes. “That’s… a joke, right?”

 

Itona gave her the borest glare he could imagine before he went back to replacing the screen of Aizawa-sensei’s phone so that he could give the buggy brick back to the teacher when he doubtlessly demanded it back at the beginning of class. He finishing snapping it back in and turned it over to mess with the small screws on the back some more when the boy with the handfuls of explosions suddenly threw his hand down on Itona’s desk.

 

He had all of a second to swipe the phone into his lap, throw a foot up on the side of the desk closest to him, and shove off, putting distance between the two of them, before an explosion completely obliterated table. Violently hot and sticky air stung the space between them, washing Itona in unnecessary heat. The only noise was the sound of pieces of debris hitting the ground at their feet.

 

In the aftermath of smoke, the blond boy grinned menacingly.

 

“Can I help you?” Itona asked him.

 

“There’s no way they let a quirkless fuck into this school,” He snarled, explosions dancing at his fingertips.

 

“Nagisa, did the student handbook say quirkless students couldn’t attend?” Itona countered, tilting his head in the blue haired boy’s direction. Nagisa was on his feet and back to wielding a pencil like a knife, but he shook his head. Itona glanced up and down his attacker’s form, who was shaking with rage and had a vein throbbing so hard in the corner of his temple it had Itona wondering if the boy had high blood pressure.

 

“I don’t fucking  _ care _ if the handbook doesn’t prohibit it, asshole,” The boy swore, raising one explosion filled hand threateningly, “There’s  _ no way _ a quirkless loser like you could’ve beaten U.A’s physical exam!”

 

“Maybe not,” Itona conceded, since he didn’t actually know what the physical exam was, but he took a step closer to the blond boy and placed the sharp tip of his screwdriver underneath his chin, “But I don’t need a quirk to beat  _ you _ .” 

 

Explosions sparked louder in the boy’s palms, and his eyes bulged in his head. 

 

“Hey guys, how about we  _ don’t _ fight?” Isogai suggested lightly, jerking a hand between the two so that he could pry Itona’s screwdriver away from the boy’s jugular. “It’s the first day, so just calm down and—”

 

“I’m not talking to you, fucking  _ extra _ , so get rid of your damn arm before I blow it off!” 

 

Itona’s desire to gut the boy drastically rose from “oh, he seems like an asshole who needs to be taken down a peg” to “it’s personal and no one will  _ ever _ find his body” in record breaking speed. 

 

“K-Kacchan?” The boy with green hair stuttered out, and hell, if Itona was feeling just an  _ ounce _ less murderous at “Kacchan’s” explosive ass then he might’ve smirked at the ridiculous nickname,  “There’s no need--”

 

“Shut your fucking mouth, Deku!” The boy growled, “I don’t know how you got in here either!”

 

“You seem to not know a lot of things.” Itona noted calmly. 

 

Several explosions burst in the air. The few students around them backed up further, but Itona didn’t give him an inch. He’d faced down Koro-sensei, the Shinigami, Shiro, Karma’s ridiculous schemes,  _ and _ Muramatsu’s family’s shitty ramen. Cute little “Kacchan” and his explosions were nothing to him. 

 

“Everybody sit down and shut up.” A familiar voice said from the front of the room. Aizawa stood the front of the room, looking very much displeased at all of them and with a large yellow sleeping bag at his feet. Apparently, the power nap in the teachers’ lounge hadn’t helped at all, and Itona felt disproportionally satisfied about it. The clock in the front of the room read five minutes past the start of class, which meant that the teacher really did depend on his alarms for everything.

 

The boy with the blond hair gave Itona one last threatening snarl, that really wasn’t all that threatening at all. It seemed that even he wasn’t bold enough to defy a teacher on the first day. Itona remained standing.

 

“Is there a problem, Horibe?”

 

“My desk is gone.” Itona said as if the pieces of the shattered wood weren;t lying at his feet.

 

Aizawa pinched the bridge of his nose at the sight of the scattered remains of the desk. He tapped his fingers on the front podium. “Your chair is still there.”

 

Itona considered ignoring him, but Isogai was giving him his patented “please stop making my life hell” smile. To anyone else it probably looked encouraging or sweet, but Itona had seen it too many times not to recognize the tension in his shoulders and the flash of teeth between his strained lips. 

 

Itona sat down in the chair.

 

“Great,” Aizawa said, “You’re all here. I’m your homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa. It’s nice to meet you.”

 

He didn’t sound like he meant it. His tone was barely over an exhausted mumble. He bent over and fished a terrible looking uniform from the sleeping bag at his feet.

 

“This is sudden, but go put these one and head to the training grounds.”

 

There was a series of confused exclamations from the students. Apparently, none of them had expected to actually practice their powers. Either that, or none of them had gone to an intense junior high prep school and weren’t prepared to do actual work on the first day. 

 

The latter was why Nagisa, Chiba, and Isogai had no problem rising to their feet immediately--even if they had no idea where the locker room was--and Isogai walked over to Itona and pulled him to his feet with a short tug on his shoulder and another baleful smile.

 

“This is a waste of time,” Itona told Isogai, stuffing his tools and Aizawa’s phone messily into his pocket. Chiba gave a slight nod at the quiet statement, showing that he either agreed or had heard, or both. Nagisa and the pink nightmare seemed to have struck a conversation, as they moved towards the door, but the blue haired boy kept his gaze on them.

 

Isogai sighed and scruffed a hand through his hair, glancing out as the rest of the class got to their feet and headed out the door. Kacchan sent a fiery glare their way, but they both pretended not to see it.

 

“Yeah,” He admitted, “But we have to trust the principal at his word.” 

 

Itona’s eyes narrowed. “The principal is a small creepy bear.”

 

Isogai winced. “Things work differently here. Bears can talk, people can heal head injuries with a kiss, and who knows what else. We don’t know what we’re doing yet.”

 

“Karma probably has a plan,” Itona said.

 

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

 

Itona analyzed him for a second: he looked better than he had last night, and definitely better than he had yesterday when he had woken up. The bandages were gone, and any marks of the head wound were cleared from his scalp, except for the thin gauze hidden behind his bangs.  Had Itona not seen him nearly drop dead on the floor of the nurse’s office, he wouldn’t have believed that Isogai had ever been there at all. 

 

But his statement had weight, and it wasn’t a weight Itona liked. He might not have known the class president as long as the others had, but he knew that Isogai was always trying to think of the best for everyone. Without really thinking about it, the three of them had fallen into the old pattern of putting their trust in Isogai, which Itona thought probably wasn’t as fair as it could have been.

 

They had forced Isogai to worry about getting them a way back to their world, find where the others were, and figure out what Karma was doing in the meantime. He was making due with what they had: a superhero school, a mouse-bear principal that could talk, and a teacher who didn’t even like them. Isogai was a good person, but even he couldn’t just trust blindly.

 

“Just lay low for now,” Isogai asked him, “I--we--I’ll figure something out soon, alright? Just--”

 

“Horibe! Isogai!” Aizawa snapped, “Get moving!”

 

“Coming, sensei,” Isogai shot a plastic smile over his shoulder. His fingers squeezed tight on Itona’s shoulder, nails digging into the fabric of the school jacket, as he breathed shakily. Chiba was waiting for them at in the doorway and Nagisa at the end of the hall. Isogai’s smile fooled neither of them, either.

 

Aizawa shooed them out of the room, but not before giving a lazily look around his teaching podium, moving papers to look under them, and his face pinched in an unhappy expression. Itona felt his lips quirk into a small, pleased smile as he fingered the man’s phone in his pocket. 

 

The group of assassins nodded to each other and quickly stole after the rest of the class to the changing areas. It wasn’t hard to catch up: they were a loud, rowdy bunch, and Itona could have tracked them down just as fast if he were half deaf and fully blind. It was surprising they weren’t interrupting any of the other countless classes going on in the school.

 

Itona slouched next to Chiba, dragging his feet. Isogai bounced a step ahead of him, and managed to be dragged into a conversation with Nagisa, Pink Nightmare, and another girl Itona hadn’t seen walk in, but she gave off the impression of a flighty person. Itona watched the classes as they passed, gaining glimpses of the places they could have been-- up until another teacher in the hall passed by them.

 

He heard someone whisper “Present Mic!” at the sight, but the man himself didn’t seem to notice. He was wearing headphones and dancing in a way that was horribly embarrassing for any student to see their teacher do. His nose was obnoxiously large, his glasses out-of-style and impractical for being inside most of the day, not to mention his long blond hair stood in spikes off his head, and the studded black leather jacket. He looked ridiculous.

 

But what caught Itona’s eye was the  _ speaker  _ clasped around his neck. It was one of those directional types, the stuff that Itona had only ever been able to take apart on occasion, and definitely not in a long time (Yoshida had nearly cried when he found Itona in the process of taking his own apart the third time they had hung out together). 

 

“Itona,” Chiba said softly.

 

Itona hadn’t realized he stopped walking. Isogai shot them a look over his shoulder, understanding much more than Itona had meant him to.

 

“Later, Itona,” the former class president said, “We have to get to class.”

 

“Later?” Itona repeated, almost surprised that Isogai hadn’t straight up told him to stop. 

 

“It would be a shame if someone messed with that thing. It sure looks expensive.” Isogai gave him a warm smile, mixed with a dash of mischief. He tapped the side of his nose twice as the corners of his mouth hitched higher, “Something to think about, yeah?” 

 

And for just a second Itona didn’t hate being where he was right then.

 

****

 

The feeling lasted for exactly five more minutes.

 

The gym uniforms were somehow even  _ more _ moronic than the regular ones, obnoxious blue and accented with the school initials and colors, and--despite the fact that this was supposed to be the top school for learning how to be a hero, learning how to  _ fight _ \-- offered nothing in protection besides a flimsy layer of cotton. It made him long for the specially designed government funded tactical gear the End class had been gifted with to facilitate the assassination of their beloved teacher. He missed the grey and black and the earpieces that made his team sound like they were right next to him while they were on missions.

 

Itona picked at his sleeves in irritation, and was minisculely glad that the uniforms at least had a pair of pockets he could tuck his tools into, because like  _ hell  _ was he leaving his shit in the locker room for that creepy bear to ruffle through. 

 

He stood towards the back of the group of students, near automatically flanking Isogai’s left side while Nagisa took the right. After a few restless minutes (where all four of them resolutely ignored Kacchan’s aggressive staring and threatening explosions from the front of the crowd) Aizawa appeared out of the side of the building with a scowl firmly etched in place. Itona idily noticed it seemed to be more angry than normal. 

 

“Horibe,” Aizawa snapped, finally reaching the class. Almost all of the faces that weren’t already not-so-subtly staring at him turned to glance at him, eyes shifting wearily between him and Aizawa as if expecting the teacher to expel him for merely showing up to class.

 

“Present,” Itona said dully, half raising his hand in acknowledgement. 

 

Aizawa’s eyebrow twitched. “Horibe,” He repeated, voice near murderous, “According to the security cameras,  _ you’re _ the one who stole my phone an hour ago.”

 

“Yes.” Itona confirmed, tilting his head to the side. 

 

From the front of the crowd, Iida gasped dramatically, hand already slicing it’s way admonishingly through the air, “Horibe-kun! It is absolutely unacceptable to steal property from a teacher, much less unassemble it for your own enjoyment, it is most unbefitting of a hero! A hero must have respect for others, or else--” 

 

“I go by Itona.” He interrupted Iida, not batting an eye at the dramatic display. 

 

Aizawa sighed and pinched his nose between two fingers, his free hand gripping the odd white capture device he’d bound with Itona and Nagisa earlier the day before. “Give me my phone back, Horibe,” Aizawa ordered, “I need it for this part of class.”

 

Itona glanced at Isogai, who inclined his head in agreement with the teacher. Itona sighed, and fished it Aizawa’s phone out of his pocket, although by now it was more of a glorified electronic brick than anything remotely useful. 

 

“Itona,” He corrected Aizawa, just to be difficult, and then whipped the phone over the crowd with nothing more than a sharp flick of his wrist that he’d learned from Sugino. The phone hit Aizawa’s open palm with a satisfyingly sharp  _ smack _ and the teacher sighed again. 

 

“Right, well,” Aizawa rolled his shoulders back, “We’re going to start today off with a quirk assessment test.”

 

It appeared that the class wasn’t prepared for that either. Itona couldn’t imagine what they thought was going to happen: there were only oh-so-many things that they could get dressed up like walking circus freaks for, and one of them was to assess the magical quirks that Itona and his friends didn’t have. 

 

“U.A.s selling point is how unrestricted it’s traditions are,” Aizawa mumbled on, ignoring the outbursts from several students. “That’s also how the teachers run their classes.” 

 

He shifted towards them, waving the screen of the phone at them all. Itona was slightly impressed that he managed to get it to the screen he wanted: a list of the usual physical assessment tests that they had been doing since junior high.

 

“Usually when these tests are conducted you’re prohibited from using your quirks,” Aizawa said, “It’s not rational. Bakugou, you finished at the top of the practical exam, right? What was your best result for the softball throw?”

 

The explosive boy frowned at the teacher. “67 meters.”

 

Itona tried to remember when the last time he had done a test like that. Between his parents’ shop going under, him being homeless, and Shiro taking him in he hadn’t put much effort into going to school at all. Then later when he had been freed from the tentacles and officially joined the class, Karasuma and Lovro had been less focused on the traditional physical ed tests than teaching a bunch of kids how to kill a giant yellow squid.

 

(Which was, by the way, not something the four of them had shared with the principal or Aizawa. Even a world like this one, killing their teacher was still probably one of those things people shouldn’t be doing.)

 

“Try it again. With your quirk.” Aizawa told him plopping a white softball in the boy’s hand. “Hurry up.”

 

Bakugou considered the weight of the ball, stretched out his right arm, and wound back in a motion that Sugino would have been drooling over. If he noticed the intense gazes of all his classmates he didn’t show it at all. He flung his arm forward and at the peak of the throw he released an explosion that sent the ball skyrocketing into the upper atmosphere with a battle cry of “DIE!” that Itona found both dramatic and unnecessary.

 

Bakugou grinned confidently. The rest of the class whispered excitedly. “How far was that?”

 

From Itona’s side, Chiba whistled lowly, as impressed as the quiet boy ever got. “Around 700 meters.”

 

Aizawa stared at his phone, gave it a shake, and hit the screen. He scowled, but flipped the screen so the rest of the class could see the reading on it, “705.2 meters.”

 

A few of the kids around them glanced back at Chiba, who shrunk away from the attention. “I’m good with distances.”

 

“This looks like fun!” The pink nightmare exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

 

“We can use our quirks however much we want!” Another guy, this one with bulbs on his elbows that looked like Scotch Tape dispensers, said. Itona  _ couldn’t possibly  _ guess what his quirk was.

 

Itona didn’t hear what Aizawa said next, due to the exclamation of one of the other guys near him, but whatever it was it quieted them back down again. “--You have three years to become heroes. Will you keep that attitude the whole time?” He grinned mockingly at the class, “Alright, whoever comes in last place in all eight tests will be judged to have no potential and will be punished with expulsion.” 

 

Itona could hear the panic in most of the classes breathing. Several of them yelled out about how unfair it was. They had only just gotten to the school of course, and now they were being forced to compete like their lives depended on it.

 

There were cries from all around him--most upset, a few hysterical, some indignant, and nearly all surprised-- and at his side Isogai tensed to prevent the irritation no doubt bubbling underneath his skin from leaking out in waves. He felt the same way. Even if he hadn’t landed in Koro-sensei’s class the traditional way, the other three knew far too well what it was like to be expelled from the top class for not being up to snuff on some asshole’s ridiculous standards.

 

Itona felt someone’s eyes on him, and looked up to see the green haired boy with the freckles staring at him. His expression was somewhere between terrified and worried and he was holding his wrist as if it was going to shatter at any second. It took Itona a moment to realize the worried part was him being _ worried for Itona. _

 

Well, fuck that, because for once Itona realized there might not be a downside in being forced to attend this shitty school: Aizawa couldn’t expel him even if he tried. 

 

Itona raised his hand. 

 

“What, Horibe?” Aizawa’s voice cut across the crowd again, sending them all spiralling into brief silence.

 

“Itona.” He automatically corrected, and then after a pause, “If I volunteer to be expelled now then does that mean I don’t have to do these dumb tests?”

 

Isogai made a sound that reminded Itona of dying cat and buried his head in his hands. On his other side, Nagisa solemnly patted his shoulder. Aizawa didn’t spare him a second glance.

 

“No, Horibe,” The teacher said, “Your group is being judged on a different scale.” He turned to the rest of the class, and boredly motioned to several track lanes that were set up a lit bit away. “Demonstrations over. The real thing starts now.”

 

The first test was a fifty meter dash. Iida and a girl that was hunched over like a frog were the starters, and probably the only interesting ones to watch. Iida cleared the distance in barely more than three seconds, and then had the nerve to look disappointed that he wasn’t faster.

 

There were more match ups after that: the guy with the tail and the girl with wide eyes and flighty expression; a boy with a laser that shot from his stomach and the pink nightmare; Bakugou and the green haired boy who still looked only a few seconds from crying. Itona stopped paying attention until Isogai and Nagisa went up together.

 

“Loser pays for lunch?” Nagisa offered.

 

“Deal,” Isogai gave him a fist bump and they both got into the crouch position.

 

When the pop gun noise went off they both torn down the lanes at the same speed. But before they were even halfway through, it was obvious who the winner was going to be: Nagisa was quick and lethal, but only with the edge of surprise and close quarters. Isogai’s speed had him across the line a full second before Nagisa.

 

Even out of breath the two of them slapped hands with glee, and Nagisa’s small smile even made an appearance. 

 

Moments later, Aizawa signaled for Chiba and Itona to move to the starting line, aggressively tapping at the screen of his phone as it seemed to repeatedly short out every time he took his finger off of it. Itona fought a smirk.

 

After a moment, Aizawa gave up on his phone and shot Itona a nasty glare, before counting off manually and slicing his arm down in a clear signal to start. Chiba shot off down the track at a respectable sprint--especially for a sniper who spent most of his time hanging out in trees and avoided hand to hand combat like the plague--while Itona merely watched. 

 

Itona allowed a few seconds to pass, and then, hands tucked languidly into his pockets, he ambled down the track at the slowest natural pace he could manage, taking more enjoyment than he probably should have in the evident frustration he was causing his teacher. 

 

It didn’t matter though, because seeing as the one teacher he respected was dead, and the main leader he followed was elsewhere, the only authority figure (if he could even be called that) who’s opinion mattered to Itona was Isogai. And Isogai was waiting at the end of the track next to Chiba wearing the fond yet exasperated smile he reserved for their class, and Itona took it as the explicit permission it was to keep making things as difficult as possible for Aizawa as often as he could.

 

Aizawa was still clearly struggling to get his phone to display their recorded times, but it was clear to everyone that Itona was the slowest. He could see the rest of the class whispering in confusion.

 

“Horibe, is there a reason you just threw that test.” Aizawa asked through gritted teeth.

 

“Yes,” He answered. “I’m attempting to be expelled from the school.”

 

There was an explosion behind them: a telltale sign that Bakugou among others in the class weren’t happy with his statement. Itona couldn’t have cared less. Underneath the outraged exclamations, the explosions, and the coughing from those unlucky enough to have inhaled the debris, Itona heard Chiba bury an amused snort behind his bangs. 

 

From the way that Aizawa was looking at him, Itona expected to be told off right then and there. There was a hard glare in the teacher’s eyes, a distaste and an anger at him specifically. But at the last second, he seemed to remember that he couldn’t expel any of the four of them. The Principal had insisted that they stay at the school under the watchful eye of the man before them. Aizawa had no choice, but to take back what he said about expelling the worst student, because Itona intended to be that person.

 

Not that he cared about any of the kids in this class--Bakugou, especially, could go take a hike. But it was the first day of class, and if Koro-sensei had turned Itona down the first time he had shown up, or the second time, or even the third time, Itona would have been dead.

 

Aizawa tapped his phone again. His shoulders rolled back, and he jerked his chin towards the rest of the tests. 

 

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” He said and Itona took it as a challenge.

 

He barely waited a second on the grip strength test before dropping the machine in boredom. He hoped forward a measly fifteen centimeters in the long jump and relished in the expression on Aizawa’s face as his brick of a phone whirled to life only to announce the number. He only attempted the sideways jump twice before declaring himself done, and when it was his turn for the pitch he was fully prepared to drop the softball unceremoniously at his feet. 

 

However, anyone in the class could see that he was purposely throwing each of the tests. For Nagisa, Chiba, and Isogai it was painfully obvious they weren’t.

 

Yeah they had above average strength, speed, and mobility, but there weren’t any average people here. Each of the other students had something that they  _ really  _ did well in thanks to their ‘quirks’, while across the board the three of them were hilariously ill-equipped to be here. 

 

Not that Itona wasn’t confident the four of them could kick the asses of everyone in this dumb fucking class, and probably even the school, but just like with exams at Kunugigaoka: the tests were rigged in favor of the “strong”, while the “weak” had to claw themselves up to the top. Itona might have seen it as a challenge, if only he’d actually cared.

 

The only other people who seemed to be in the same boat were that green haired boy with freckles who seemed to grow closer to a breakdown with each test, and the invisible girl who didn’t seemed bothered at all.

 

Itona had to admit even his attention was peaked when the green haired boy flubbed his softball throw completely. When he turned around, completely confused by the fact it hadn’t gone anywhere, Itona realized that it hadn’t been his fault. 

 

Aizawa, who’s quirk appeared to be the ability to erase other people’s quirks, gave him a withering look, further amplified by the way his hair floated in the air with some ominous, dramatic force. There was speech there-- Itona yawned through it. Something about being a hinderance to others and his own quirk being uncontrollable, yada, yada, yada. The teacher gave the kid a second chance to do the throw. Itona thought he was going to admit defeat.

 

“705 meters,” Chiba whispered just before the ball touched the ground.

 

“Did he… is his finger  _ broken _ ?” Isogai said with a voice of horror. “He needs medical attention!”

 

The boy turned to look at Aizawa, a trembling lip and tears in his eyes, but he clenched his hand into a fist. “Sensei, I can still move.”

 

Nagisa and Isogai followed him and they both got frighteningly average numbers that were nowhere near even one hundred meters. Both of them brushed it off with small laughs. Chiba, unfortunately did even worse than them. 

 

Itona didn’t know if it was because of all the attention that had been on him, or if it was just him not being very good at throwing things. His shoulders shriveled up the second the ball left his hand, and he seemed to try and fold into himself with humiliation. Still, Itona had a hard time believing the ball only went a mere thirty eight meters, with or without Aizawa’s phone spoofing the values.

 

“Chiba…” Nagisa said softly, seeming to have the same train of thought.

 

The other boy brushed him off, “Hayami.”

 

Itona didn’t know what that meant, but he knew better than to ask. He picked up the ball and weighed it in his hand. Aizawa had his eyes narrowed towards where Isogai had put a hand on Chiba’s shoulder, seemingly ready for when Itona dropped the ball a few inches from the pitch.

 

“Hey, is that fucking loser quirkless, too?” Bakugou snarled, “How many of you  _ worthless idiots _ did goddamn U.A. even let in in the first fucking place?” 

 

“He’s not quirkless--” Isogai attempted to say, but Bakugou cut him off with a sneer.

 

“Like I’m gonna believe your worthless word, you shitty  _ useless extra _ .”

 

“That’s enough Bakugou,” Aizawa interrupted, “Horibe, you’re up.”

 

“Yes,  _ sensei _ ,” Itona said, fingers twitching tightly around the ball. He recalled the pitcher’s position he’d seen Sugino use dozens of times, and mimicked the stance with ease. The other students didn’t think much of it, figuring he was winding up to just let the ball fall from his fingers, but the other three lunged forward in almost sync. 

 

“Itona, wait!” Isogai yelped, too late, Chiba dragging the former class president back with one hand and Nagisa’s eyes widened. 

 

Itona ignored them. His nails dug into the ball, he spun on his heel, and in one smooth move he pelted the ball into the crowd of students. He might not have been the class sharp shooter, but Itona had  _ aim _ and the ball went flying towards Bakugou’s head. 

 

A normal person wouldn’t have had a chance to react, but the boy sent it sprawling sky high with a swear and a well placed explosion. Smoke spilled from his hands and covered half the students in a thick screen of smog that had most of them coughing and staggering away. 

 

_ Good reflexes, _ Itona noted,  _ but it won’t be enough. _

 

Itona darted off the plate as Aizawa’s capture cloth shot towards him and missed. He crossed the distance between him and Bakugou in mere seconds, and for all his reflexes Bakugou didn’t have time to react when Itona swept from under the cover of the smoke and caught him in the side with a devastating kick and sent him sprawling to the ground. 

 

Itona swung himself over top of the other boy, using his foot to pin Bakugou’s left palm into the dirt right as another explosion went off. Itona leveraged his weight over Bakugou, pinning his other arm to his side with his right knee and slamming his head into the ground through a fistful of that stupid blond hair.

 

“Calling them useless and worthless?” Itona said calmly as Bakugou struggled to dislodge him. “That’s awfully hypocritical of you, Kacchan.”

 

“Itona!” Nagisa yelled.

 

Bakugou unleashed another explosion. Whether it was in an attempt to murder Itona or dislodge him, Bakugou failed at both. Itona had been trained to render people a lot stronger than “Kacchan” useless, one of them being a super human octopus with the power to destroy the moon and then the world they lived in.

 

_ “FUCKING. GET. OFF. ME.”  _

 

Itona pretended to consider. “No,” He told Bakugou, but then hands were suddenly wrapped around his arms, and within a moment Itona found himself awkwardly dangling in Chiba and Nagisa’s grasp, each one of them tightly pinning an arm to their chest and dragging away to create distance. 

 

“DIE!” Bakugou declared, flipping to his feet and lunging forward, only for Isogai to appear in the gap between them and push hard against his chest with both hands. Unbalanced and near manic as he was, the sudden force sent him stumbling backwards. “BACK OFF, FUCKWAD!” 

 

“No.” Isogai told him firmly, “Listen, those powers of yours might stop anyone else from trying to seek retribution for your trash talk, but if we’re going to be sharing a classroom for the rest of the year you need to get this into your head:  _ we’re not scared of you.”  _

 

“DIE!” Bakugou yelled (again) and lunged forward at Isogai with a surprising speed. Both of his hands shot out with fistfuls of dangerous explosions ready to incinerate Isogai where he stood.

 

Isogai didn’t even flinch.

 

Itona had seen Karasuma block knives hundreds of times, and although he had never expressly taught any of them how to block, Itona would have been surprised if none of them had picked up a thing or two here or there. Although it was different now, Isogai’s movements were swift powerful: ducking unders the outreached arms, Isogai wrapped his ankle on the back of Bakugou’s foot and proceeded to throw a palm hit into his chest. Bakugou jerked backwards, and then he was on the ground at Isogai’s feet, defeated without any lasting marks at all.

 

“We’re not here to fight,” Isogai said, and Itona knew it was directed at him rather than at Bakugou.

 

“Go die,” Bakugou hissed, and he jammed a hand up in Isogai’s face before he had a chance to pull back.

 

“Isogai!” Nagisa yelled.

 

But there was no explosion. Isogai stumbled back a safe distance, clearly surprised that his defeated opponent would continue to fight. His bangs swept backwards and, for a second, the gauze from his head injury made an appearance. Bakugou’s smug grin slipped to one of confusion when there was no resounding release of his quirk.

 

“Alright that’s enough,” Aizawa announced from not too far away one hand on his bandages as if waiting for a reason to wrap either if the quarrelling students up. “All of you back inside and change. We’re done for today.” 

 

Bakugou sneered at them. Isogai tapped the gauze on his forehead to make sure it had stayed in place. Aizawa had said it was over, but from the tension in the air, Itona doubted Bakugou was going to let this go forever.

 

The girl with the wide eyes and round pink pads on her fingers (whom Itona vaguely remembered caused the softball to float straight up into space), raised her hand tentatively. 

 

“Uh, Sensei?” She squeaked, “A-are you going to expel us?”

 

Aizawa gave her a lazy look, his hair flipped back over his face, but his eyes were still piercing. “I lied to get you to show me your best.” He grinned at them flatly, “A logical ruse.”

 

Most of the class let out cries of frustration, although they were mostly overruled by Iida’s loud exclamation of approval of the school itself using whatever tactics it took to improve their students. Itona personally thought it was just a cop out to explain why Aizawa couldn’t expel him. Chiba and Nagisa let out soft breaths on either side of him, letting Itona’s arms go, and the latter reaching out to check on Isogai (who looked a little shaken at his brush with another trip to the nurses office).

 

“So you’re not going to expel me?” Itona yelled over the rest of them.

 

Aizawa squeezed his phone in his hand. “No, Horibe.”

 

Itona sighed, “Darn.”


	5. Thanks for the Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was Megu Kataoka, an assassin, the fourth best knife fighter from class 3-E, and owner of a killer right hook that had put Okajima in his place more than once. She was one of the two representatives of the class, a leader, and someone they all could rely on in a tragedy. And sure, sometimes she wasn’t the most feminine girl to enter a room, but she had long since gotten over that.
> 
> (It had nothing to do with Isogai’s shining eyes, the proud quirk of his lips, or the smug way he announced, “Kataoka can do anything the guys can do, but better!” that one time.)
> 
> ((It did. And she knew it.))

Megu Kataoka had not always been in love with Isogai.

 

There was a time, she recalled vaguely, before she had fallen from the grace and prestige of 3-B when Kataoka hadn’t known of Isogai, when she was book smarts and an okay-ish swimming instructor, when Tagawa and her clung to one another because they had known each other in middle school-- before that disastrous swimming debacle. There was a time, when Kataoka just simply hadn’t known about Isogai, hadn’t cared about him, hadn’t spent entire classes being distracted by his earnest eyes and the ruffling of his fingers through his black hair. 

 

There was a time, she swore, when she didn’t harbor feelings for a dumbass that was never going to return them.

 

She pressed her hands against her head, trying to keep her breathes deep, trying to keep them even, trying to prevent her stomach from rebelling once again. Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she refused to let them fall.

 

She was Megu Kataoka, an assassin, the fourth best knife fighter from class 3-E, and owner of a killer right hook that had put Okajima in his place more than once. She was one of the two representatives of the class, a leader, and someone they all could rely on in a tragedy. And sure, sometimes she wasn’t the most feminine girl to enter a room, but she had long since gotten over that.

 

(It had nothing to do with Isogai’s shining eyes, the proud quirk of his lips, or the smug way he announced, “Kataoka can do anything the guys can do, but better!” that one time.) 

 

((It did. And she knew it.)) 

 

There was a part of her, Kataoka admits, that wanted to scream and rage at her current situation. Wanted to take the uncomfortable metal chair that Karasuma had led her to almost a day ago and slam it into the wall of one wall glass until it  _ shattered _ because Isogai was gone, gone  _ gone-- _

 

And Kataoka hadn’t done anything but watch.

 

She watched herself fail  _ again _ to confess, and she didn’t know why because it was not about expecting anything from him as much as it is getting a weight like lead off her chest. She watched herself hesitate those precious seconds as two gunmen appeared behind Isogai. She watched as his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth opened to respond to her comment completely obviously. Then she watched as Isogai  _ vanished _ inches in front of her in a shock of teal light without so much as a  _ scream _ . 

 

She watched herself, numbness bleeding into her core, as she sprinted towards their attackers, weaponless, but not harmless (because she hadn’t been harmless since long before joining class 3-E). She watched herself catch one of enemies, his the throat with her elbow, and kicked her foot into stomach of his partner followed by several quick attacks that she had picked up from watching her former classmates fight, dirty kicks, under arm jabs, and digging her nails into exposed skin. She watched their weapons tumble from their hands, and their bodies fall to the ground, sounding completely out of place on her childhood home front porch.

 

Then somehow, someway, she watched herself scramble across the threshold into her house, not screaming, not yelling, but calmly calling for her parents, her older brother,  _ someone.  _ She watched herself type a warning with shaking fingers into the group chat as dread pooled hot in her chest, and rose up her throat. She watched herself call up Karasuma with a flat voice and speak in even, treamorless tones.

 

She watched as the cars appears in front of her house minutes later, her elbows leaning heavy on her thighs and her head pressed firmly between her hands to keep the panic from overwhelming her because Isogai was  _ gone _ , her best friend was  _ gone _ , and she’d done nothing, and what was she going to tell the class, fuck,  _ what was she going to tell Maehara-- _

 

“Breath, Kataoka,” Karasuma-sensei had placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and squeezed, “It’s over now, you did well.” 

 

She watched herself get led to one of the cars, heard through her heartbeat the protests of her parents and older brother when they were told they couldn’t come with her. She watched as the world blurred by in a car ride that lasted, five, ten, fifteen minutes until at last they were pulled up in front of a government building and Karasuma was guiding her into it. 

 

She watched herself get placed in an interrogation room with a shock blanket draped around her shoulders and a glass of water gripped in her hands. She watched Karasuma promise to be back soon, that he was going to check on the situation, and that they had to keep her here because she was the only one of her class who had come into contact with the hitmen and  _ lived _ .

 

Yesterday, Kataoka had watched all that happen and kept herself pulled tightly together through all of it. Today, though, almost twenty-four hours later with dread and nausea pooling in her stomach in equal amounts, Kataoka just wanted to cry.

 

The walls felt too thick and not thick enough: she had curled in on herself, desperately, clinging to the hope that she had just gotten food poisoned and fever dreamed up Isogai disappearing like that. But the hours had dragged the hope from her clutches, and crushed it in front of her eyes, when the nice medic with an unrememberable face had bandaged up her bleeding knuckles and told her everything was going to be alright.

 

They had taken her phone from her when they left her alone in the room. It felt like they had left her stranded on an island by herself. Ritsu had advised against it, Kataoka thought, Ritsu had loudly told Karasuma not to take her phone.

 

Karasuma had done it anyway. Kataoka hadn’t resisted.

 

She should have. She should have because despite Karasuma saying he’d be right back, he hadn’t come back. Faceless other people had come in, asking her if she needed food, water, anything. Kataoka wanted to tell them she wanted her best friend back, but her throat swelled up at every attempt to speak and left her dumbly shaking her head, and flinching when the door slammed shut again.

 

She was left alone with her thoughts for twenty four hours.

 

She rewatched every memory of the day before until it didn’t feel real, until it she could convince herself stupidly that it was a movie she had seen, until she had talked herself out of three panic attacks. She hadn’t tried lying to herself in a long time; she desperately wished she believed any of the desperate whispers she was telling herself. 

 

She knew that the End Class had been targeted. She knew Isogai was gone. She knew that she wasn’t. 

 

Kataoka wondered if anyone had seen her text, or if it was sitting in 26 message boxes for 26 students who would never see them. 

 

Rationally, she knew that wasn’t possible. Karma would never let himself disappear off the face of the Earth like that, and Terasaka was too loud to go without at least a little bit of a fight. She couldn’t have been the only one to survive. It wasn’t possible.

 

She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to block out of the irrational stats that were coming to her mind. She and Isogai knew the class better than the class knew themselves, knew their strengths and weaknesses. And logically she knew which of her friends would have stood a chance if they hadn’t gotten her message.

 

She had never wished she could forget something ever before, but alone in that room for endless hours found her desperately begging her thoughts to  _ stop. _ She didn’t want to think about anyone being gone, not even that pervert Okajima.

 

She didn’t remember when she had first heard the yelling, only that it had been going on for a few moments fading in the buzz of her own thoughts. Kataoka had spent so long alone that she had halfway convinced that there was no one else there and the voices were just noise in her head.

 

“Twenty six hours!” The voice shouted. Kataoka thought she should have recognized it, but she couldn’t put a name to the noise. The silence returned after that, for a few minutes.

 

Kataoka closed her eyes.

 

“--Isogai!” The voice yelled. Followed by, “Then just me!”

 

The door to the room flung open and Kataoka flinched so hard her bandaged knuckles slammed against the table. She didn't have the will power to swear on it.

 

For a long time, Kataoka had only had one friend, Tagawa, although so many people knew her and knew of her. It had been an entirely different story in class 3-E: She had been so close to those kids because they had been the only other ones to understand the weight of having the fate of world on their shoulders, because they knew what it was like to fall from grace, because they had taken a look at her fighting skills and  _ hadn’t  _ told her she wasn’t feminine enough. She graduated junior high with the closest friends she could have ever gotten.

 

Still she never thought she’d be so happy to see Rio Nakamura in her life.

 

“Hey,” The blond haired trouble maker said, her eyes red and her arms halfway open in an offer, “Rough day, huh?”

 

And before Kataoka even knew what she was doing, she had flung herself out of that stupid metal chair, scrambled across the room, and thrown herself in Nakamura’s arms. Terrible, ugly sobs shuddered from her chest, fat rolling tears raced down her cheeks, and she dug her chin into Nakamura’s shoulder because she was  _ real  _ and  _ alive  _ and  _ here.  _

 

Vaguely she realized that Nakamura had returned the hug, tightly, her slender hands rubbing circles on Kataoka’s shoulder blades. It was grounding. She wasn’t an illusion. She was real. At least one other student had survived.

 

“Holy shit,” a voice beyond them whispered, and Kataoka had just enough time to blurry blink away tears to make out the shapes of Sugaya and Yada and Sugino and a couple others. Then a much closer figure blocked out the sight of her friends and pulled the door closed behind them. 

 

She flinched at the darkness of their clothes, at the sudden proximity, at the closing of the door that felt so much like cutting off the fresh breath of oxygen Kataoka hadn’t realized she’d had been gasping for.

 

“Kataoka,” A familiar voice said-- Karasuma, “I’m sorry.”

 

“For what?” Nakamura squeezed her tighter, voice indignant, “Leaving her alone in a room for twenty-six hours? Quarantining her away from all of her friends after one disappeared right in front of her? Treating her like a witness instead of your  _ student?” _

 

“Yes.” Karasuma said plainly, and Kataoka buried her face more deeply into Nakamura’s shoulder, desperately winding her hands tighter and tighter into the back of Nakamura’s shirt because she was  _ real _ and  _ alive _ and  _ here  _ and Kataoka didn’t think she could stand if another friend slipped between her fingers. 

 

“Hey, it’s alright now,” Nakamura reached one hand up to wind through Kataoka’s loose hair--she’d abandoned the hairtie hours ago for something to fiddle with until it had snapped-- as the other continued looping soothing circles across her spine, “You’re alright now, Kataoka… You were  _ so brave _ , man…” 

 

Nakamura spoke with utmost confidence. But she couldn’t know. Couldn’t know that Kataoka wasn’t brave at all, that she didn’t move until it was too late, that she  _ let them kill Isogai--  _

 

Kataoka choked on another sob as Nakamura’s fingers wound tightly against her scalp, “It’s not your fault,” She muttered, and if Kataoka had any room to think she might’ve told Nakamura that she was a lot better at this whole ‘comforting’ business than Kataoka would’ve given her credit for. Because with soothing circles smoothed into her back, a hand pressed gently against her scalp, and calm reassurances spilling from her friend’s lips, Kataoka’s breath stops hitching and her choking sobs turning into quiet hiccups.

 

“Atta girl…” Nakamura whispers, “Just breath… You’re okay, you’re safe… Just breathe, Kataoka.” 

 

Somehow Nakamura shifted them across the room, and Kataoka didn’t even realize it until the other girl was herding her back into the seat. For a brief terrifying second, Kataoka was convinced that she was going to let go and disappear out that door again, but all Nakamura did was plop herself on the arm of the chair (which could not have been in any way comfortable) and kept a tight grip on Kataoka’s wrist. A squeeze, that spoke in volumes despite the calming quietness of the room.

 

(Somewhere in the midst of her meltdown, Kataoka wondered if it would feel more reassuring to have their fingers intertwined: It was harder to let go, harder to disappear, but easier for her to have squeezed back and show her gratefulness.)

 

((Her chest heaved because  _ Fuck! _ That was hand holding and the last person she had thought about hand holding was Isogai and now he was--))

 

Karasuma sat down across from them. Kataoka wasn’t sure if it was the way she was squinting through her puffy eyes, between the tears that just kept coming even since her breathing had evened out, or if it was the stress of the situation, but he looked so different. Different from the man who had stalked into their classroom two years ago and announced that they were the ones responsible for saving the world, different from the man who had taken up training them as assassins, different from the man who had inserted himself between them and Takaoka and taken a face full of poisonous gas for them and supported every single trap they tried and fought the most powerful assassin hand to hand and told them he trusted them to handle the killing for their teacher and--

 

He looked different from the man who they had all watch Isogai hand most of the government’s money back to on that stage last year.

 

He looked tired. Like he was counting the number of breaths they all had left. Like he was suddenly realizing his overall goal-- that peace that the Defense Ministry was striving for-- was unobtainable and he’d never be able to settle his conscious. 

 

Kataoka was still shaking by the time she managed to remember how to speak in actual words rather than clumsy syllables.

 

“Where’s…” She paused, “Where’s Bitch-sensei?”

 

Nakamura squeezed her wrist. She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but it was a grounding feeling.

 

“New Mexico,” He said, with little to no hesitation, “In America.”

 

“What,” Nakamura said nastily, “This wasn’t important effort for her? Several of us are--” She stopped, with a sneer. “Some of us are not here.”

 

“You are misunderstanding, Nakamura,” Karasuma said. And then didn’t elaborate. Kataoka rolled her nails over her bare knee.

 

“What I am about to say is completely confidential.” Karasuma said, in a tone that Kataoka remembered so very well. It was his stern voice, the I-can’t-say-what-I-want-right-now voice. The voice he had used when he had grabbed Nagisa by his jacket collar and slammed him to the ground with the words “hard time” echoing in all their heads.

 

“I don’t care,” Nakamura said, “Karma was--” And stopped again. Anger flashed in her eyes, traveling out through her voice that was just a smidge too calm to not be hiding a knife under her words.

 

Kataoka felt her chest tighten. Karma? Karma as in  _ Akabane _ , as in their resident sadistic psycho? The Karma who they were all betting would take over the world before Kayano won her next Best Actress award? Karma, who´d taken down the assassin Grip with nothing more than his own fists and a spur of the moment plan? 

 

Karma and Isogai. The names burned in Kataoka’s mind. She had failed them.

 

“Who…?” Kataoka’s voice abandoned her, with a struggling breath. She didn’t want to know. Not really. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend it wasn’t real, like she had been doing the past twenty six hours.

 

Nakamura squeezed her wrist again.

 

“Karma,” She said, “And Nagisa. They were on a date.” The normal mischievous cheer was missing from her voice. “No one can find Chiba or Hayami. Muramatsu, Hazama, and Yoshida, were too far away to help Terasaka and Itona. By the time any of them made it to the end of the block, both of them were gone and the attackers had fled. And Maehara’s parents came home to find the front door wide open. No sign of Maehara anywhere. Isogai--”

 

Kataoka flinched at the mention. Nakamura squeezed harder, an apology of sorts, probably.

 

She went on to say something about Mimura leading his attackers on a wild chase through the city and managed to slip away, Hara landing several good punches before her attacker was scared off, and Okajima distracting his attacker by throwing several erotica magazines at them and fleeing via rooftop. Kataoka felt her heart beating a tattoo against her chest with every name: alive, alive,  _ alive. _

 

When Nakamura finished, she gave one more squeeze to Kataoka’s wrist, and a smile that looked more happy than Kataoka thought it should have. The silence held the room with a loose hold for a moment, two, three, then Karasuma shifted in his chair across from them.

 

“Kataoka,” He said kinder, tireder, than she ever remembered hearing him sound, “I need you to tell me everything that happened again.”

 

Because once wasn’t enough. Her nails dug into her knee as she saw Isogai’s face again in her mind’s eye, his smile, his confusion, his scream. Her tongue tasted like sawdust, and swallowing the swell of misery in her chest hurt.

 

“I--” Kataoka looked down at her lap, words heavy in her mouth. Nakamura squeezed her hand again, and when Kataoka glanced upwards Nakamura flashed her a small encouraging smile, “Isogai was about to leave my house. We were studying together, and he was tired because he’d been taking on more shifts. He said he was going to meet up with Maehara this weekend so he was taking on the extra shifts to make up for what he’d miss.” 

 

“We’d been studying for hours. It was around eight, I think. And,” Kataoka swallowed, fisting her free hand into the fabric of her uniform skirt, “And I walked him outside. We were on the porch and I was saying goodbye when--” She pinched her eyes shut and sucked in a sharp breath, “They came out of the bushes. Two of them. They had this weird silver gun, and  _ I saw them,  _ but I hesitated and Isogai--” A sob hitched in her chest, and Kataoka squeezed her eyes tighter until spots swam behind her eyelids, “It shot light instead of bullets and--and--and it was like it dissolved him.” Kataoka swallowed and looked up at Nakamura, who was biting her lip like she was trying not to cry, “They shot him before he turned around,” Kataoka said miserably, “Isogai didn’t even see them.”

 

_ But I did _ , went unsaid,  _ But I did, and I didn’t do anything and now I’m here and he isn’t.  _

 

Karasuma took an equally deep breath. He folded his hands in front of himself. Kataoka thought he looked like he was steeling himself for something, bad news. She didn’t think that news could get any worse.

 

“After the events of last year I was given a promotion,” He said. “The Ministry of Defense created a new position: Head of Antimatter Containment. It was my duty to round up all of Yanagisawa’s experiments and research and see that it was locked away or destroyed. The goal was the keep other scientists from repeating the mistakes that created the mouse that blew up the moon, and...Korosensei.

 

“Irina and I managed to track down all of his bases and shut them all down. However, an American scientist managed to break through our wall and escaped with an unknown portion of Yanagisawa’s original notes. From there we tracked him back to America, but we were stonewalled by the American Government for a week.”

 

His fingers folded tightly, squeezing in obvious anger. As he talked a pit in Kataoka’s stomach formed, steadily growing, steadily rolling around and steadily becoming more and more impossible to ignore. Her nails filed across her knee again. 

 

“By the time we were allowed access to the country, the American scientist had put his back up plan into motion.” Karasuma’s tone evened out, “We blockaded his research center in an attempt to flush him out and he responded with a message that he had agents watching all the class 3-E students.”

 

Kataoka stopped breathing. By the sharp intake that Nakamura made, it seemed like she was in the same boat.

 

The same tiny, terrible, awful boat in the middle of an endless sea. And they had both turned around to see a tsunami sized wave towering over them.

 

“If I were to move my forces in, he would eliminate the entire class.”

 

And the wave came crashing down and tore their tiny, terrible, awful boat to shreds.


End file.
